Am I missing something?

I think you might be missing the little fact that, despite the existence of Tesla and SpaceX, Melon Husk does NOT know "more about manufacturing than anyone currently alive."

Him saying he knows more about manufacturing than anyone alive today is less descriptive than me saying I know more about the internet than anyonet. I work in manufacturing and the space is massive. What field if manufacturering? Because in the tesla alone there are dozens of separate fields of industrial manufacturing and he isn't even the preeminent expert in automotive manufacturing let alone any of the components in the car.

Elon musk might know a lot about manufacturing space ships and electric cars (edit: that's a big might). But that's not general knowledge of manufacturing, in fact out of a lot of manufacturing that's very specific and highly technical manufacturing.

But beyond that, Elon is not and probably never has been the head of manufacturing at any of those companies, and he hasn't worked a significant amount of time (probably not any time at all) in any of his factory floors. so it's impossible to give him points for practical manufacturing skills.

And even if you could twist your brain around to give him that. There are people in charge of manufacturing larger companies with much more diverse portfolios. Let's say something like Hitachi who has people who know manufacturing magic wands to mopeds to precision l scientific equipment.

Or how about those companies in China that make every knick-knack and consumer electronic on the planet.

Fuck, if you wanted to name American CEOs and give them credit for manufacturing everything they produce under their company Jeff Bezos owns Amazon and Blue Origin, the direct space ship manufacturing competitor to SpaceX.