Low earth orbit peer-to-peer low cost internet is very different from what the old guard in this "space" is up to. And it is in that sense that they are copying Elon. (edit: I thought Facebook was first to announce this, but apparently it was indeed first inspired by SpaceX).

Take a look at what Teledesic was planning in the late 90s. Elon’s a great guy, but nothing I see about Starlink is innovative over what they were working on over 20 years ago.

This is something I see people misunderstand time and time again; “innovation” isn’t just inventing an entirely new novel product.

Musk is not about innovation in terms of entirely new products. As other posters have commented, rockets, electric cars, and Internet satellites have all been done before.

Where he seems to be special is having the vision to see opportunities to develop or scale existing products much further than incumbents, and having the confidence/chutzpah/bloody-mindedness to pull it off.

However, through the development required to meet his challenging goals, his teams often need to innovate significantly - this innovation is often exceptional.

And of course, what makes a large-scale global Internet satellite service viable is actually the ability to reuse launch rockets - one of his other major innovations.

Global high speed satellite internet is "pretty common"? Cool. Where do I sign up?