Elon told Katie Miller it would be impossible to restart with $1,000. He's worth $800 billion, more than the next four wealthiest people on Earth combined. He's exactly right. The reason is the most underrated rule in capitalism. Reputation and knowledge are the asset. The cash is downstream. Sam Altman got fired from OpenAI on November 17, 2023. Within 48 hours, Microsoft offered him a new AI division with effectively unlimited resources. Same person, same skills, zero equity at the moment of firing. The world's largest software company opened its checkbook before the weekend ended. Mira Murati left OpenAI in late 2024. She raised $2 billion at a $12 billion valuation in July 2025 with no product. Andreessen Horowitz led the round. Four months later the company was in talks at $50 billion. Tinker shipped in October. Adam Neumann blew up WeWork at a $47 billion valuation. Two years after he was forced out, a16z wrote a $350 million check at a $1 billion pre-launch valuation for Flow. Largest single investment in the firm's history. Travis Kalanick got pushed out of Uber in 2017 mid-scandal cycle. Saudi PIF wrote a $400 million check into CloudKitchens at a $5 billion valuation two years later. Microsoft led an $850 million round at $15 billion in 2021. The market prices founders, not founder bank accounts. The bank account is the lagging indicator. The inversion settles it. Sam Bankman-Fried had $26 billion before FTX collapsed. After, he could not raise a dollar. Elizabeth Holmes had the magazine covers. After the verdict, nothing. The market funds belief in future compounding. Strip Elon of cash and the belief is intact. Strip SBF of belief and the cash did not matter. Give Elon $1 and you get back more than $1. That is the entire claim. The $1,000 thought experiment assumes the founder is the same person stripped of capital. The market does not think that way. The market thinks the founder IS the capital. The $1,000 is a rounding error on whatever round they want to raise next. Every founder gets asked this. Elon gave the honest answer.