I think that your reasoning can be applied to a lot of people, independently from the "above average smart" condition.
Still, I believe that one can both recognize Musk's abilities and give due credit to the people in the company.
As for being at the right place/time, I hope you agree with me in saying that success is a mix of hard work and luck. But again, this is not the point of my first comment.
Btw, I had a hard time understanding what you wrote so forgive me if I got the wrong meaning out of it.
That's orthogonal to my argument though, isn't it?
I'm just saying that he didn't build the thing himself. He decided to do it and did whatever he does at Tesla, then a lot of smart people worked like crazy to finish by the deadline.
Stretching it a bit (maybe too much): think of going to war. The President gets to decide it, but when you win you don't say "President X won the war". Yet a single soldier is likely as replaceable as a factory worker (before I get more hate, I know they are different but I hope you get my point).
I tried to make it as clear as possible that my problem is not with this, or any other, single article :) I just happened to write it here because I've been thinking about it for a bit, read the article and wanted to see what people think about it.
Am I the only one who is completely fed up of this "cult of personality" mentality in tech and tech-related media?
The article itself is not that bad, but the title here on HN makes it look like he built the damn thing himself.
I know everybody is smart enough to understand that there were tons of people involved, but why put Elon Musk instead of, idk, Tesla.
I don't have any problem with any single article on Musk/Jobs/you name it but on aggregate it makes me slightly mad.
EDIT: I'm not trying to take anything away from Musk. He is a very succesful person for many good reasons.