The difference is he has been involved with three large successes - ebay, telsa, and spacex. This success/failure ratio is leagues better than just about anyone else. And he did this in three very different industries.
So his self driving car effort will likely fail, or at best be very late.
But we do need more people willing to take chances like this who can also execute as this is rare.
The thing people need to realize is that people can start hitting misses at any time.
Elon Musk is perhaps a con man (in the fully expounded sense of the term "confidence man"), but particularly one who believes his own bull.
If he wasn't like that, he might not have done some of the worthwhile things he's done. I definitely wouldn't take anything he says at face value, but I think there's value in him being like that.
Consider Toyota. 25 years ago their upper management was capable of fostering the development of hybrids. Now they seem to be unable to change direction.
VW is doing a better job. Probably because Germany threw some of the previous management in prison.
A while back, I was like "This Elon Musk guy is really an example of what we need more of in the world".
It makes me cringe.
This was the days of solar rooftiles, Boring company, going to mars soon, the hyperloop, battery technologies, self driving vehicles.
All of it was complete horseshit.
The worst thing of all is that, I can hold my hands up and be laughed at but since then there are armies of Elon fans that don't recognise it.
In for a penny, in for a pound.
EDIT: Even on hackernews, there are people with this fetish. "It isn't his fault, the public is to blame for thinking that fully automated self driving cars, meant fully automated self driving cars". Ugh.