Early on in their life as a company, they had 3 back-to-back failures. They were a laughing stock of the industry for the most part. The idea that this little (by comparison to NASA or some of the established private players) company could take on rockets and make them reusable was a joke.

But Elon (and IIRC Peter Thiel) poured more money into it in spite of this, and they were finally able to get moving and are now (at least in my mind) at the forefront of the industry in many areas.