I prefer to talk about what the ideal solution might be and go from there. Incremantalism doesn't work when the opposing side wants to burn everything to the ground.
I mean, the only real difference is that Musk is an idiot and is doing it brazenly. Every election since Citizen's United has been 100% about money, and it's not like it was a non-factor before that.
Rockefeller alone accounted for as much as 3% of the US GDP at one point. That would be like 800 billion today. It's difficult to just draw a straight line of inflation on his net worth from his height to today, because the economy has fundamentally changed since then. Partially because of how fucking ruthless of a motherfucker he was.
Imagine if all cars were electric, and Tesla was ultimately the only source of electricity for everything you own. And Elon basically said if you don't vote for his guy he'll shut off the lights. And had done exactly that before.
Rockefeller, and others like him, also purchased their fair share of elected officials and if you worked for them, it was understood you voted for the guy they wanted. Or there would be consequences.