Virgin Galactic is essentially the commercialization of the Spaceship One technology, which won the Ansari X-Prize. The two companies are focused on different by IMHO equally interesting areas. Space X is focused on heavy launch vehicles for commercial payloads while Virgin Galactic is focused on manned suborbital (and hopefully eventually orbital) travel.
If you think that Space X is only about heavy launch for commercial payloads, you misunderstand what Space X is trying to do.
True, Space X has only been rated for delivering commercial cargo. But from the start their Dragon has had a crew configuration that holds 7 people. That's not just for show - they have plans to be human rated soon, and will start delivering passengers to the ISS.
Farther down the road, Elon in interviews has said that his road map includes transporting 80,000 people from Earth to Mars to start a colony. I do not know what time frame he intends this to happen in, but he's said repeatedly that he intends to be a passenger.
For Space X, delivering commercial payloads is a necessary first step similar to how Tesla needed to deliver sports cars on its way to proving the technology that they intend for a mass consumer car. According to people that I know who have worked at Space X, they ignored the Ansari X-Prize because the important engineering challenges aren't getting into space - that part is relatively easy - it is getting into space in a vehicle that will survive reentry at orbital speeds. I don't know if this belief is right, but if it is then Virgin Galactic is potentially headed down a technological dead end.
