I think the final fall in DMC was a result of John Delorean's own "jet set" attitude, flying the Concorde back and forth to Europe, dating super models (and marrying one), etc.. as well as giving Detroit (GM) the biggest FU ever, he had a big target on his back from day #1. And then the cocaine thing happened (because of all these haters out there, he was framed), and while he was completely exonerated, it succeeded to destroy the man and the company in the end, and neither could recover. If it weren't for these external factors, DMC could have survived at bit longer, I think. The nail in the coffin for the company was when he asked the British gov't for another bridge loan to get the cars at the factory shipped to the US, and he couldn't secure that. And by then, NOBODY was going to give him any money, so that was the end. I think in the end, John Delorean had his own "Steve Jobs" style "Reality Distortion Field" and just made stuff happen, but that can only work so far.
I feel that Elon Musk seems to be following completely different personal and business models, and has learned from all these past failures (Tucker, Delorean, Fisker, etc). We shall see!