You've missed the whole "first mass-market fully electric car that actually makes sense" thing and the whole "kicked the space industry in their lazy butts" thing, but the one thing that actually does the elevating is that he's not doing it for profit, but for forcing the electrification of transport and getting humans to Mars.
Landing the booster stage of rockets is really new. Building mass-market electric cars that are supported by continent-spanning fast-charging networks and can drive themselves is really new.
>Landing the booster stage of rockets is really new..
Wait a minute. Was there any new, ground breaking tech involved in it. Will you call delivering pizzas using drones ground breaking, even if it was not done by anyone else before?
>Building mass-market electric cars that are supported by continent-spanning fast-charging networks and can drive themselves is really new...
Same thing...Wait a minute, can drive themselves? Ok. I am done here.
Not sure how it elevates him from yet another billionaire entrepreneur...