I think Musk is both an engineer but also a great salesman. The stupid tube is the salesman part...

A lot of people won the paypal lottery, also other lotteries...if you keep winning the lottery(paypal, starlink, tesla, spaceX) maybe it's not a lottery after all. Few have driven a handful of companies to success like he did.

That being said, it's hard to trust the guy, because you never know when it's the salesman or the engineer making the pitch. Also, I wouldn't want to work for him.