I mean what originally furthered the space race was government funding on the US side, and socialism on the USSR side. And anyone, even the government could have facilitated the inventions facilitated by Musk, he just has a bunch of money.
But also many people thought going to space would be useless and that a space exploration company could exist was thought to be impossible and wrong for businesses to enter such an industry. That is why I admire Musk he took a chance with SpaceX and Tesla even though everyone laughed at him for thinking Space X could get as good as NASA and that an electric car company could compete with giant car companies.
Technically Elon is in a lot of debt because he keeps buying shares of his company so much so that he has to borrow money from capital banks. And he doesn't even see any of his shares. In the end, you won't change your mind and neither will I so let's just agree to disagree cause I don't have any new rebuttals left. so good debate!