For somebody unfamiliar on how start-ups on that scale "work", I suppose this edge case offers some valuable insight.
I more often than not had a hard time understanding what some well funded start-ups I had contact with are actually up to.
From personal accounts of the people involved, the common modus operandi seemed to be "let the money stream not ebb and we will figure something out in the meanwhile" as supposed to "you finally do not have to be preoccupied about the finances and can start focusing on solving the problems at hand".
I wonder how efficient the system really is, purely in enabling indivduals to develop their ideas into some form of actualization and even if the "start-up" fails completely on its promise.
And also how much room to appreciate the efforts made so one can at least activley learn from mistakes/misconceptions made.
Elon Musk is an interesting example as it illustrates that there seems to be a goldilock zone of over the top "predictions", a hypnotic dance with investors and the public: "How long for X taking place?"
Aside from his PR, at least he delivers on some actualized forms of engineering feats.
As the pendulum swings from government funding to private funding, the high concentration of wealth ("resources to enable") on either side make it prone to that scale of fraud.