Why is Elon Musk way ahead of this current generation?

He has unusual “visibility” because he chose to be different. In many ways:

1. He went into business mindset very early in his family;
2. He was bullied heavily in South Africa. He wanted to leave and came to America on his own.
3. He is smart in a sense but he also works very well with others. He is a businessman - if you hate business then hate him, if you hate businessman then hate him, but he is a business person from young.
4. He worked with his brother and neighbor to build the first company and sold for 300 million dollars. He then started the second, the internet banking company, and merged with another person to form Paypal.
5. He was admitted to Stanford engineering graduate school and he stayed at Stanford for a total of two days.

He failed early, did not rely on “learning form school”, and he trust others, and grabbed opportunities at the right time.

He was the investor in the SpaceX case - he wrote a 6.5 million dollar check to become the founder. So yeah, he is different and never tried to be the same.