i remember an interview with Tom Mueller (sorry no link) where he was talking about Musk and how he insisted on face sealing pintle injectors for the Merlin engine. Everyone was telling him it couldn't be done but, as Tom put it, "it turns out, it got done."

may not have that exactly right but hte point is Elon, at least in the early days of SpaceX, was definitely more than a salesman.