As I said:
Another major difference is that Musk built Tesla up from a small size,
Emphasis added. From Tesla's Wikipedia page:
Tesla was incorporated in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning as Tesla Motors. The company's name is a tribute to inventor and electrical engineer Nikola Tesla. In February 2004, via a $6.5 million investment, Elon Musk became the company's largest shareholder.
Given the current size of Tesla, being able to buy a majority share of it for a mere $6.5 million clearly makes it a very small company by comparison.
Also, with ZIRP (zero interest rate policy) by the Feds, you can borrow money at basically zero cost anytime you want. You can string along a disastrous mismanaged company for years in that scenario.
Why do any companies go broke, in that case?