[rob74]

I don't dispute Musk's success as a manager - the problem is that, to achieve his vision, he turned each of his companies into dictatorships. That's fine (at least in the US), because you can choose not to work for him. But I don't think it's fine to run the entire US like Musk's (and Trump's) companies are run. As they say, Hitler contributed a lot to technical progress, built great Autobahns, and his scientists later assisted both the US and the USSR in the space race and in other fields - does that mean it's good Hitler was in charge of Germany? I don't think so..

[api]

That's what I'm getting at.

Why do we need this to advance?

We had everything we needed to build the Falcon 9 in 1985.

We will keep suffering Hitlers until we can build the Autobahn without him.

[senordevnyc]

If we look at every other category of major innovation for the last century, are they all kicked off by a world-class narcissistic asshole?

Many yes, but certainly nowhere near all. So that would seem to invalidate your hypothesis.