He's an easy reference, shouldn't be surprising that he's used - he's fresh on people's minds, recency effect and all that. When I reference Elon and the companies he's leading, it's not stating an assumption he's doing it alone - I'm simply referencing his thinking style based on the videos I've seen of him speaking. They're big industries too he's disrupting, forcing change and innovation from others/competitors - so that makes him even more prevalent in my mind as well.
Who would you jump to referencing if wanting to include an example of holistic thinking, empathetic person, who is known to work/think/make decisions from founding principles?