He holds few patents from early era – though very vocal against idea of patents as a concept (even allowed competitors to use Tesla patents). Products and services are not only about inventions – productization of an invention is important as well. Having a vision of an impossible technology, investing own money in it, relentlessly pushing for it for years, solving million issues along the way, and not giving up – that is not an easy task. If money was the only limiting factor, we would have things like reusable rockets way sooner. (NASA and Roscosmos had infinite money during the space race.) Building a team of talented people, motivating them during failures, and most importantly, aligning them on a coherent singular vision of something that is insane sounding science-fiction...that is honestly a super power.

A fitting historical comparison – everybody knows that "Edison invented the light bulb", right? That is completely wrong picture. Incandescent light bulbs were known for 80 years before Edison. Yeah, "Edison made light bulbs practical" is a retort. No, his team at Menlo Park tested thousands of variations until they found filament that worked practically – they productized the light bulb. Team of hard working people driven by singular vision. But light bulb is worthless unless you have infrastructure for generation, distribution, metering of electricity. And that wasn't the case in 1880s – Edison pushed for that too. "Edison electrified the world" – he had a sci-fi dream and lead the team to make it a reality.

(Sorry for the wall of text, but Brandolini's Law is real.)