Doesn't the legal scrutiny of Musk and his enterprises lately really show how long he operated without the government down his back? I bitched about his "get out of jail free" card for years, beginning with Paypal (note what happened to anyone else in that space).

I wasn't alone in recalling "Tuckers" when he said he'd start a new car company.

How much legal red tape did SpaceX manage to navigate that the other rocketry start ups became ensnared by?

Twitter paid $150M in fines before Musk bought it and fired the compliance and moderation people. That Xitter hasn't been fined yet is evidence that favorable treatment continues.