Yes, he does now, but at one point in the past, he did not. Building a world-beating team is extremely difficult--IMO, way more difficult than most programmer/engineer types here on HN give credit for.

Hiring super smart and dedicated people is hard to do, especially for a risky startup. You have to identify the talent you need, and convince them to leave their current job to take a risk on you (because talented people tend to already be employed in nice jobs). And you have to do it very quickly, repeatedly, without making too many mistakes.

It's difficult to get out of the hindsight mode, and remember that in the early days all of his current companies looked unlikely to succeed. He's "Elon Musk" now, but in those days he was just one of the PayPal millionaires--potentially a one-hit wonder.

Beyond hiring, there is organizing the team. That means hiring leaders outside the engineering comfort zone, like financial, sales, managerial, communications, HR, etc. And organizing them and delegating the right work to them, while maintaining focus on the things that only a CEO could do.

So, the fact that his companies employ thousands of top-notch people is, to me, one of the best reasons to think of him as an unique and amazing leader.

On top of this, he's doing it in multiple industries at once--and in industries that most people thought had very high barriers to new entrants.