Comment by jgilias

But that's exactly the modus operandi of Musk's companies. Figure out the big picture of something based on first principles, assume that the industry is stuck on some local maximum, and try to do it in a different way. Sometimes it works, sometimes it may not.

I mean, there would've been plenty of knowledgeable people in the relevant industries telling Musk why landing rockets and reusing them is not going to work, and why battery powered mass market electric vehicles is a pipe dream.