It seems to correlate with reddit usage. Reddit is easily astroturfed to manufacture consensus, and there are plenty of people out there with an interest in turning people against SpaceX. Notably the CCP. If you chart tonnage to orbit by year, you'll see that China briefly overtook America before being absolutely eclipsed by SpaceX. Not much they can do about it either, but stoking domestic opposition to SpaceX is one thing they could do.
Musk has his faults, but most of his critics have nothing close to his risk-taking ability and grit.
It’s usually people who have hardly ever risked anything to start a business, nonetheless in a cutthroat industry.
If you gave most people $180 million, they’ll happily retire into the sunset, not invest it in very risky electric car and aerospace companies like Musk.
Once you have enough money for you and your children to live comfortably for the rest of your lives without lifting a finger, there is no risk whatsoever to spending whatever money you have left over. At no point was Elon Musk ever risking his comfort or the future of his family's financial well-being, unlike actual rags-to-riches entrepreneurs with skin in the game and actual consequences for failure.
