I was always confused because it seemed like his dad bought a handful of shares in a mining company and people think this means he owns it? Like if I went and bought 10 shares of Apple suddenly Tim Cook is answering to me? Elon seems to have had a nice upper-middle class/lower end rich childhood, but from what I've been able to discover he's not some trust fund baby. He wasn't the money guy at Paypal I don't think, but he did manage to turn his Paypal money into successful car and rocket companies.