I'm very far from a musk fan, and if you want to make the case that musk isn't responsible for Tesla, SpaceX, and Starlink I think that's a legitimate argument to be made. But I don't think there's much argument to be made that those 3 companies are not advancing humanity.
Tesla and SpaceX would not exist OR prosper, without Musk.
If you want to understand why, read the Walter Isaacson biography of Musk (which is based on accounts by his friends, enemies and employees). He's a hard-arsed manager, he is technically involved at all levels of the company, he is relentless, and he takes risks and iterates like no other CEO.
Considering Musk isn't the founder of Tesla, that's obviously not true. He is the founder of SpaceX so that's probably true that it wouldn't exist without him.
Walter Isaacson doesn't have the best reputation for covering his subjects objectively to be fair. If your source for what Elon has or hasn't done is Isaacson, you aren't standing on very solid ground.
The bigger picture point though is that you can easily argue that the employees at those companies, and not a single man, are responsible for the success of those companies. We give far too much credit to CEOs.
> Considering Musk isn't the founder of Tesla, that's obviously not true
Tesla began as a very early-stage startup in mid-2003 but produced nothing prior to Musk.
It was Musk that made the investment (in 2004) that Tesla needed to begin work on their first car (the Roadster). Elon Musk was co-founder, product architect and chairman of Tesla at the time of the Roadster's development. To be clear - he was the product architect of Tesla's first product, from the beginning.
Musk received the Global Green 2006 product design award for the design of the Tesla Roadster, presented by Mikhail Gorbachev, and he received the 2007 Index Design award for the design of the Tesla Roadster.
