[orulz]

Elon Musk's companies approach "traditional" problems from a "tech" standpoint. That is: they bring agile, iterative development with continuous integration, and corresponding organizational structures, to both car and rocket manufacturing.

Both of these industries are traditionally quite slow-moving, heavily laden with bureaucratic processes, management overhead, complicated supply chains with too many hands in the pot (some of which are there for the sole purpose of collecting rent.) Basically, there was plenty of fat to cut by rethinking things from the ground up.

The process wasn't smooth at all in either case, and in Tesla's case it's not even certain at all that it will pan out in the end - but at least in the case of SpaceX, the end result is much leaner than the incumbents and (arguably) more capable too.

Tunnel and transit construction in the US is nothing if not loaded down with bureaucracy and grift. If he can shake up the industry like he did with rockets, even if much of the technology he proposes doesn't pan out, then we all win anyway.