You'd have to provide some pretty compelling reasoning to support that Tesla is successful in spite of Musk; i.e. that without him, its market cap today would be higher than 780 billion dollars.
Even discounting all other data, Tesla avoided bankruptcy in 2008 only because Musk tricked a key investor into believing that he could personally finance their investment round if the other investors didn't sign.
You'd have a hard time tracking down a single eligible CEO who could play that role in 2008, let alone get them in a position to actually be with Tesla at the time. And this is only a single example of a pivotal moment during Tesla's history that hinges on Musk.
