Musk wasn’t even involved in the day to day of Tesla. He was on the board until 2008, and then went hands on with vehicle design and marketing only. If you think that’s what it takes to “run a startup” then you’ve clearly never worked at a startup.

You said he “ran several startups to profitability”. That is what I’m refuting. He didn’t run shit. He funded and marketed. All of the actual operations of the businesses were the work of other people, not him.