One example of his being polite doesn't mean he doesn't also make fun of competition publicly. Look at the interview where the interviewer asks him about a competitor's electric car (BMW I think) and he just laughs for a not-insignificant amount of time followed by something like "have you seen the thing?"
The "have you seen their car?" comment was from an interview with Bloomberg regarding BYD, not BMW.
He laughed when asked about BMW during the Q2 2013 conference call, but it was a chuckle followed by serious comments. It was only when the questioner began nervously laughing that he laughed for a significant time.
Compilation video containing both events (unfortunately with music, but I don't care enough to track down the individual sources): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gt6CAswSOY
So, the big criticism here is that… he's too forthright about competitor's products? I'm actually quite ok with that.
His theatrics aside, he wants to make electric cars viable and take us to mars. Even if he ultimately fails, if he makes everyone else rise up to compete with him, we as humanity win.
Sometimes -- and I'd argue often -- leadership consists more of both 1) getting out of the way of and 2) enabling those who Want To Get Shit Done.
I find the fanboiism somewhat tedious (I don't find the top comment of this thread all that insightful), but I do admire Musk for seeming to hit a number of remarkable goals. That said, I find Tesla and Solar City more impressive/promising than SpaceX (technical challenges and accomplishments notwithstanding) or the Hyperloop (ultimately an idea that's been rightfully junked in the past).
Given the history of US industry of doing just the opposite -- stalling and preventing needed innovation -- if I had to pick a single attribute of his that I find most encouraging it's his leadership in that regard.
He may not ever get to Mars, but he's doing something far more important, which is to drastically reduce the cost of putting things into LEO. If he can get it low enough a whole list of things pencil out that weren't economically feasible in the past, like space-based solar power generation.
Without SpaceX it's likely the business would have muddled along without putting any effort into reducing costs for decades.
Yes. The biggest achievement of SpaceX so far was economical and organizational. Musk cleverly employs latest - which are considered common sense in other industries - approaches to the industry known for its conservatism. That gives them - eventually - proverbial kick in the sensitive parts, making them care more.
To be fair, the BMW electric car is the ugliest car BMW has ever made. It looks like they accidentally welded two different models together in the middle. They deserve to be made fun of for that disaster.
