Your point seemed to be that engineers are "a dime a dozen," yet I doubt any "dime-a-dozen" engineer or group of engineers could have accomplished what Tesla's or SpaceX's engineers have.

But let's answer a question you posed in your comment: Why couldn't all those engineers build a cost effective reusable rocket system before Musk came along? Or how about an electric car that could go 400 miles on a battery charge?

They could have, because obviously, they did. Their collective expertise is what made that possible. Elon Musk didn't just draw up all the plans and send it to them to make happen. Elon Musk, however, could never in a million years have done it alone.

So I didn't miss your point, I disregarded it. Those dime a dozen engineers are far more important than Elon.

> Nobody walks around thanking their skin cells for existing.

Well, skin cells are not human beings, so comparing human beings to skin cells is... disturbing at best.

I think OP's point is to credit Musk for the agency in organizing those fine engineers around tackling these problems. Together they had the ability to achieve these things, but that state of togetherness does not arise accidentally. Entirely seperate from his contributions to the engineering going on, building a company is an act.

You would if not thanking them meant you suddenly lost 10% of them though...