> Would we rather that Musk had just never founded Tesla and Space

That really misses where a lot of the hate for Musk is coming from. If he had never started it in the first place, the shorters would not stand to win anything. They both want him to fail, but are also heavily invested in him having tried first.

Also side note. Musk didn’t found Tesla, he bought in and kicked out the real founders. The company would likely not be where it is today without Musk, but I doubt it would have failed completely, likely just be worth less and working on becoming profitable with smaller anbitions.