> or that we was just there to provide the money and bask in the glory

The "raising money" part is the inarguably most important part of any startup. Given enough money, you can ride through absolutely anything - and the kind of projects that Musk provided with money always need a crapton of them: Tesla to even have a tiny chance at surviving against the established behemoths, and SpaceX because (prior to them) spaceflight was something for rich developed nation states only.