I wanted to make a tiny quibble about Elon not being an inventor (below) as well as draw attention to a characteristic or two that sets some entrepreneurs apart.
A few weeks ago we found ourselves in Austin, TX with a simultaneous burning desire to get our asses down to Boca Chica and the Big Rocket. Of course this had to be done in a Tesla Mod Y (performance version of course with autopilot) and try to understand the guy who essentially removed ALL the controls of a car (and all of the vents, knobs, dials and failure prone mechanical gizmos) and replaced them with 2 little nubbins on the steering wheel.

The idea – no moving parts to break or fix. In this respect it is a similar idea to Steve Jobs removing all the buttons but Steve was all about aesthetics not so much manufacturability or saving money (i.e. making money).

As luck would have it, we managed to hook up with a member of SpaceX mission control who became a tour guide of the property. Yes I will get to my point soon.

We are standing at the launch pad trying to understand Elon so I asked who invented the chopsticks? This is the crazy idea of catching space ships with “chopsticks” only in use at Boca Chica as part of a re-use and rapid turnaround/relaunch program required to colonize Mars. My host replied “of course Elon”. Elon saw way beyond today’s situation and came up with a mad idea that had a slim chance of working but was fundamental to the future program.
Similar thinking went into the massive castings that are now in use in Tesla to replace 70 previously welded parts. Nobody had tried to make such a casting before nor did such a machine exist to do it but Elon could only see 70 discreet parts and wanted none of it. In this case he didn’t invent the machine but the idea that it might be possible. It is unusual true that the chief engineer is also the CEO.

SpaceX, Starlink, Tesla, Neuralink and more are littered with Elon’s inventions or interventions or visions of the future or whatever these breakthroughs are. They start with an inquisitive mind that is not hampered by conventional wisdom and ideas that see beyond today’s problems like a master chess player playing in a world full of rank beginners.

Nowadays it helps a bit to be able to throw a billion dollars at a problem.