I think Hype is a great force in our modern, connected, globalised world and entities like Elon Musk identify this and fuel it to their advantage, to the max.
It is the best marketing/ad delivery channel. There is ad blockers everywhere. So what is the channel that cannot be blocked and scales really well?
People talking. In other words, identify a population group that are gullible, provide stuff that can make them talk about you and your company. You got free, perpetual, scaleable, targeted publicity. What more do you need?
You just need to keep providing stuff that they can talk about. Like Hyperloop, Mars colonies etc etc. No one cares if they are bogus and wouldn't work. People have short term memory anyway.
I'm not saying he doesn't do some cool stuff, but everything he does gets talked up like it's the second coming.
EV's would not be a thing right now if it weren't for Tesla, and the other co-founders would've failed if it weren't for Elon.
The hype is real.
Hyped or not, the privatization and commoditization of space travel is new and interesting.