When PayPal sold to eBay, Elon Musk got $160 million.
Most people would retire and live the rest of their life in luxury. Put it in an investment account and live off the interest. Not Elon.
He put $80 million into Tesla, an electric car company, and $80 million into SpaceX, a rocket company. It's hard to remember now, but both of these ideas sounded batshit insane and highly likely to fail 20 years ago.
Things weren't easy. At one point, both of the companies were at risk of dying. Elon was advised that he could probably put the money together to save one, but not both. He was told to focus on one business, and let the other go.
He mulled it over. Which one should he save, and which one should he let go? But ultimately he just couldn't decide. He said these two companies were like children to him. They were both so important, and he loved them both so much, that he couldn't let one die. He had to fight with everything he had to save them both.
Today both are multi-trillion dollar publicly traded companies. Both have had an utterly transformative impact on their respective industries. I can't imagine how difficult it was to go through that time, but thank god Elon couldn't choose a favorite child.