Eberhard and Tarpenning had the idea to make an EV sports car (rather than the traditional "green" branding that EV's tried to go for), so I think they deserve

Eberhard and Tarpenning had the idea to make an EV sports car (rather than the traditional "green" branding that EV's tried to go for), so I think they deserve credit for the "sexy" approach. Musk deserves credit for recognizing the opportunity, commandeering it, and keeping the idea going. The concept of reusable rockets isn't new, but Musk and Shotwell helped make them reality. What really made it work and where Musk doesn't get enough credit is in the iterative "fail fast" approach to rocket design... something untenable under risk-adverse bureaucracies like NASA and Boeing. His contributions to Paypal are dubious (IIRC) at best. I think his true genius was building a fan base with the technocratic class that appealed to their techno-libertarian dreams of a future utopia. This allowed him to raise huge amounts of money despite constantly failing to meet his promises. Trump for us nerds, basically.