> He continued reaching into the pockets of wealthy people

I'd argue he used subsidies from the government, both direct and indirect.

Buyers get a tax credit for electric cars. SolarCity received hundreds of millions of dollars in direct grants from different state governments, I believe this all went to Tesla.

Tesla's high curb weight causes more damage to roads. Tesla's lack of unionization means that it relies on mistreatment of workers to get its cars made.

There are a lot of examples of Musk taking money both directly and indirectly from those who are not in his customer base. I won't argue whether or not Tesla has been a net benefit or not for the USA, but the result of this is that Musk can point to his company's success and marketing to pump the share price-- and he is now attempting to dump it.

The sneaky thing about inequality is that a lot of the direct costs are externalized. Musk can still appear "self-made" when he has externalized so many of his costs to the taxpayer and his workers.