You don't raise funds for such a risky endeavour without a fantastic narrative. I don't think they're doubting that Musk is also capable of building a company

You don't raise funds for such a risky endeavour without a fantastic narrative. I don't think they're doubting that Musk is also capable of building a company that actually achieves results. Everybody knows this by now. I think the key argument is that he's also a master promoter and that that skill is underappreciated compared to the engineering angle. The way I read the article, it's suggesting that if you start by to coming up with the best possible VC pitch for a moonshot business, and let everything follow from that, you'd get pretty close to Musk's approach.