The original Tesla guys recognized and agreed Musk was a founder as part of their settlement, and this is now both the formal and legal truth of Tesla. I think some others were also recognized as founders too. The two initial guys didn’t really achieve anything prior to Musk and other early people joining.
Calling SpaceX Gwynne’s baby is just straight up misinformation. Talk to actual employees from SpaceX, especially early on. They’ll tell you that Musk actually does get involved in various deep aspects of the vehicles. You might not be aware, but Gwynne Shotwell was in BD not product.
I'm sure Elon does get involved. The question is, does he get involved in a constructive way.
All signs point to "no". We know this, because of what the Tesla and SpaceX people he brought on to Twitter in early days after the acquission said. I believe the words were, "babysit", "distract", and "manage".
I'm sure some fanboy will mark me down, but this was discussed on this very forum when it happened.
His two first successful business endeavors were web-based services (i.e. software), and he had no real experience with or education in cars or rockets before he joined/founded Tesla and SpaceX respectively (he’s got a bachelor’s degree in economics and one in physics).
I think he’s probably a smart guy who’s worked hard to learn as much as possible about the fields he’s entered into, but I find it hard to believe that he’s a world-leading technical mind at either. The reason he’s struggling comparatively with Twitter is partly that he doesn’t take it seriously, and partly that he has other ambitions for it (“X the everything app”) than what it actually is.
The main attributes behind his success are his obsessive desire to achieve certain goals, and his willingness to take on a very large amount of risk over and over again (he could easily have gone bankrupt several times, but so far things have mostly gone his way).
Edit: Another reason he’s had a tough time with Twitter is that he’s acted out of spite and alienated people and organizations he should have been on good terms with, mainly advertisers (Twitter’s actual customers).
Calling SpaceX Gwynne’s baby is just straight up misinformation. Talk to actual employees from SpaceX, especially early on. They’ll tell you that Musk actually does get involved in various deep aspects of the vehicles. You might not be aware, but Gwynne Shotwell was in BD not product.