He constantly emphasizes that it's the entire team bringing SpaceX to what it is. However, there is an important difference between working for a company and le

He constantly emphasizes that it's the entire team bringing SpaceX to what it is. However, there is an important difference between working for a company and leading one. Boeing/Lockheed, Arianespace, NASA, ESA, Roscosmos, etc, etc not also only have brilliant scientists and engineers working for them, but also have billions of dollars and have been around for many decades. The big difference in outcomes comes from the leadership. These other companies are headed by people of different abilities, different ideologies, different technical abilities, and so on. This is why they've all been, more or less, surpassed by a company started on a shoestring budget in 2002. In other words, I imagine if you had let Musk have complete control over ULA (united launch alliance - an arguably anticompetitive merger between Boeing and Lockheed) he'd not only achieved as much as he has already, but likely far more given their vast resources - both economic and human. Similarly, if you put Marilyn Hewson [1] (president, chair, CEO of Lockheed) in charge of SpaceX's people in 2002, SpaceX almost certainly would have catastrophically failed. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marillyn_Hewson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marillyn_Hewson