Comment by oskarkk

> SpaceX wasn't the first private company to develop a reusable rocket.

It surely was the first to actually make a reusable orbital rocket.

> It was just the first one owned by a billionaire that convince other people to fund it.

Elon Musk became a billionaire in 2012, when they were already working on reusability. They didn't even need that much money to develop it, they mostly experimented with it on operational flights for their customers. Anyway, companies in the industry could also assign/obtain funds to do it, but they chose not to (until Blue Origin and the current wave of space startups).

> SpaceX is notorious in the aeronautical industry for attempting to interfere in the research and funding of other companies. Over a decade ago a competitor had viable plans for a 2 stage rocket... until Musk sued to block the funding.

Source? Never heard anything like that.