Comment by leesec

>Responsible in what sense?

In the sense that without him the innovation would not exist or become mainstream. Don't be fooled into thinking he only has cash to offer. John Carmack himself has stated that he thinks Elon is in his wheelhouse in terms of engineering.

>Most of his businesses already existed before he took the helm, including Tesla.

Tesla was a concept car at the time, not a mass production vehicle with no intentions of ever making millions of cars, if you don't see why they are different I don't know how to help you. The production is at least as hard as the innovation.