Musk is able to convince or bully others into giving him investment money - including goverment. That is real contribution for sure. Just not an engineering.
But the one thing he actually does understand is engineering. He's not a grifter pretending to be an engineer, he's an engineer who thinks he knows everything (he doesn't). Link below contains statements by other engineers on their experience working with him:
https://old.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/k1e0ta/eviden...
Then we could talk about NASA's SLS... (Branson isn't even worth discussing at this point)
Both organizations have the money and the engineers and scientists, only those working for Musk have a landing rocket. Clearly there's something special about Musk.
> In 1990, he entered Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.[37][38] Two years later, he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), where he completed studies for a Bachelor of Arts degree in physics and a Bachelor of Science degree in economics from the Wharton School.[39][40][41][42] Although Musk claims he earned the degrees in 1995, UPenn maintains it awarded them in 1997.[43]
> https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/musk-physics-degree/
A court ruled in Musk's favor about this. Do you want to challenge that? Then bring more than empty claims about some donations, pls. He didn't even have the money back then - he co-founded Zip2 in 1996 and sold in 1999. Perhaps you meant the 2009 donation, but he had the degrees long enough by then ;-)