Musk came in as “the money guy” to PayPal before Theil was rich. It’s why he was CEO for 6 months, but everyone hated him as a leader so much they fired him.
They all got really, really rich together, and the Elon risked it all on Tesla and survived via government handouts for a decade.
Easy to take big risks when you know you can pop back to dads emerald mine for a fill up at any point.