It's not clear to me how active Elon was with PayPal, I really think it was much more Peter Thiel that made it successful (although I am not claiming expertise). Elon founded x.com which merged with what become PayPal, but as PayPal started to become successful it was Peter Thiel at the helm. That doesn't mean Elon wasn't instrumental to its success, only that I cannot find much evidence that he was instrumental to its success.
> In October of that year, Musk made the decision that X.com would terminate its other Internet banking operations and focus on the PayPal money service.[25] In the same month, Elon Musk was replaced by Peter Thiel as CEO of X.com. The X.com company was then renamed PayPal in 2001,[26] and expanded rapidly throughout the year until company executives decided to take PayPal public in 2002.
Acting like he hitched his flag to an already successful company is disingenuous.