I think that every time I hear him or read about him. It's astonishing and inspiring to see someone so successful have such an optimal perspective.

And beyond that, he acts on it on a very large scale!

I'm a huge fan, but there is one big thing Musk might be wrong about: there's a substantial risk that his party-line views on CO2 will eventually look naive instead of visionary. I sincerely believe he's one of the good guys, though, so I hope history won't judge him too harshly for it. (Given HN's mostly party-line views on CO2, I hope I won't be judged too harshly for this comment.)

If it helps, I bet his ex-wife disagrees. :-)

I'm a Musk fanboy myself, but there's always someone with a different opinion.

Wasn't he responsible for PayPal? I'm not even sure a trip to Mars would make up for that.

Musk was responsible for PayPal. However, he wasn't responsible for the mess it turned in to. Musk even mentioned in an interview that he PayPal has gotten much worse than when it started out. Features that were in their minds since PayPal was founded still haven't been implemented to this day. It's kind of disappointing, seeing how it could have been a great device to speed up payments worldwide.