SpaceX has had a large counterfactual effect, but Elon didn’t start it; not sure how to evaluate his effect on the space launch industry.
Hm, what’s your source for the “Elon didn’t start SpaceX” claim? Wikipedia seems to disagree:
In early 2002, Musk started to look for staff for his new space company, soon to be named SpaceX. Musk approached rocket engineer Tom Mueller [...] and invited him to become his business partner. Mueller agreed to work for Musk, and thus SpaceX was born. [...] Early SpaceX employees such as Tom Mueller (CTO), Gwynne Shotwell (COO) and Chris Thompson (VP of Operations) came from neighboring TRW and Boeing corporations following the cancellation of the Brilliant Pebbles program. [...] Musk personally interviewed and approved all of SpaceX’s early employees.
Ah, sorry, I was thinking of Tesla, where Musk was an early investor and gradually took a more active role in the company.
In February 2004, the company raised $7.5 million in series A funding, including $6.5 million from Elon Musk, who had received $100 million from the sale of his interest in PayPal two years earlier. Musk became the chairman of the board of directors and the largest shareholder of Tesla.[15][16][13]J. B. Straubel joined Tesla in May 2004 as chief technical officer.[17]
A lawsuit settlement agreed to by Eberhard and Tesla in September 2009 allows all five – Eberhard, Tarpenning, Wright, Musk, and Straubel – to call themselves co-founders.
Hm, what’s your source for the “Elon didn’t start SpaceX” claim? Wikipedia seems to disagree:
Ah, sorry, I was thinking of Tesla, where Musk was an early investor and gradually took a more active role in the company.