I don't know what role Musk actually played in design (beyond "it needs to be pointy"), but he absolutely bet the farm on SpaceX.

One more rocket-boom and SpaceX and Elon's pocketbook were done for.

> (beyond "it needs to be pointy")

Here's a few very consequential decisions that were taken under Musk: liquid methane instead of liquid hydrogen, same engines for first and second stage, full cycle combustion engine, usage of steel for Starship, and of course, reusable rockets. None of these decisions were close to being obvious. When you have hundreds of very passionate and talented engineers working for you, you'll be bombarded with lots of options. If you don't become a mini-expert yourself, you will start delegating lots of decisions, and the final result may or may not be optimal. Just look at Boeing.

> If you don't become a mini-expert yourself, you will start delegating lots of decisions, and the final result may or may not be optimal. Just look at Boeing.

I'm assuming you're talking about Boeing's screw-ups with 737 MAX. If so, you've got it backwards. The 737 MAX's design issues were precisely because the leadership (i.e., non-engineering management) wouldn't delegate to the authority of the experts (i.e., the engineers) and forced their own decisions on the project. They did not become "mini-experts" themselves, sure, since they didn't actually put in the effort to understand what the consequences would be, but they did treat themselves as "mini-experts", as evidenced by their "we know better than the engineers" attitude to the concerns that were raised by engineering during the development of the MAX.

These exact things are something Mr. Musk should not have any opinion on.

Those decisions aren't minor trifles which Musk inexplicably micro-manages. They are core to the entire differentiation between SpaceX and its rivals. He's an engineer, of course he's going to be involved in such decisions. Claiming otherwise is like saying that Steve Jobs shouldn't have had any opinion on switching from MacOS Classic to NeXTStep as a base for macOS.

Sometimes dictators are able to choose optimal policies, even with all the costs.

And yes, most firms are command economies, after all. As CEO...

I am familiar with the history that SpaceX almost failed when the falcon 1 failed to work, but I can't say I have a huge amount of sympathy for musk taking an immense risk.

I'm sure he had enough money set aside even then from PayPal/x.com that even if SpaceX had gone belly up he could have bought a very nice house somewhere and lived in a very comfortable lifestyle for the rest of a human lifespan just living off the interest from $15-20 million.

I think his original plan was to have around $40 million left over even if tesla and spacex failed, but when they both ran into difficulties in 2008-9 IIRC, I think he put the rest of his money into both companies to keep them going

https://youtu.be/AeeeEDSekG8?t=3663

[EDIT: in this interview he talks about the fact he had “no money” and had to borrow money for rent around that time]

If you can trust Elon with things he says. Over the years I got really skeptical.

Given all of the other actions I've seen from Elon, I wouldn't say he's a reliable narrator.

I'm sure he had the engineering nous and connections to find his way back from oblivion, but (unless he exaggerated) things we near dire for him financially.

I know it's besides the point, but, has spacex published any figures showing how much it costs them to refurb these rockets? Last I checked, they had not. Which suggests they have nothing to brag about, yet.

And the amount of expertise that SpaceX has gotten from the US government / contractors on how to build rockets that don't explode.

Spruce Goose 2.0? If it could be launched into orbit it could be useful.