Btw Musk had little to do with the success of X. The revenue of PayPal was merely $61 million at the time Musk was fired as CEO of X.com(later PayPal).
There's an unimaginable gulf between buying books paying tuition to college (especially back when that was affordable), and an investment in a business that's the equivalent of about $350k today.
Elon was never going to have to eat rice and beans, or go work in a cubicle for a big corp to pay the bills if any of his ventures failed.
You're reading that wrong. Elon is claiming his dad invested 10% OF a $200k round of seed funding. The actual amount was $28k. (See wiki: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip2 )
I was being more charitable to Elon by trusting what he said himself. I know the $28k number. Almost 40% of the households with college age kids earn less than 70k before taxes. How many would be able to afford to give a $28k loan to their kids?
You weren't being charitable to Elon, you just either misread what was in the tweet or mistyped and claimed his dad invested $200k.
Median household income is $70k, so I'd expect you'd need to be upper middle class or quite good with money to loan $28k to your kids. I certainly won't argue that the Musks were poor, but there's a very big difference between "able to help their kids through college and loan $28k" and "silver spoon trust fund kids".
Elon was never going to have to eat rice and beans, or go work in a cubicle for a big corp to pay the bills if any of his ventures failed.