They laughed at Einstein, they laughed at Galileo, but they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. You don't see the losing outcomes in a game where someone becomes wealthy and famous by taking unlikely risks. Those outcomes lead to ignominy, not celebrity.

Musk reminds me of the guy who came up with the idea of scamming people by dividing them recursively into two groups, each of whose members receives an opposing prediction about some future event with a binary resolution.

By the time he works down from 65536 potential marks to 4 or 8 or so, they think he's a god, a time traveler, or a time-traveling god. They'll give him their life savings without a second thought.