He is not pushing humanity forward and certainly isn't getting people to pull in the same direction. If you disagree, I would be curious to hear how Neuralink and his Twitter acquisition are related, or how his frequent scandals help to keep people to focused on the mission.
He has no real vision to be pushing humanity forward to, he has a series of smokescreens. It is plain for me to see that Musk has no strategy, and that these are a series of tactics to maintain relevance and distract from the issues he'd rather we forget about (such as the sexual harassment allegations that have recently been made public, or that FSD is not and has never been "one year away").
At best he's a distraction. But he's worse than that, he siphons energy and attention that should be directed towards actually addressing climate change and other existential challenges into a vortex that ultimately serves to empower him and feed his ego. His contribution to the success of SpaceX and Tesla is his prolific talent for charming people and attracting investment and attention. In many ways they succeed despite him, not because of him. In a world without Musk, people are still working on these problems and making the same breakthroughs, just under a different corporate entity.
It is not the unique insight of Elon Musk which makes these innovations possible. It is decades of research, mostly funded by the taxpayer, mostly taking place at universities and national labs. The engineers at SpaceX and Tesla are taking it the "last mile" to commercialization.
These are both critical contributions. But if Musk were not the one to hire these engineers, it would Bezos or Branson or somebody else - when the idea is ready to be commercialized, someone will be there to fund it. Being able to promote an idea and attract investment is a real and challenging skill, but it's not on the critical path to introducing these innovations to society. (It is absolutely on the critical path for creating and sustaining an individual company, however.)
