Let's not kid ourselves. He was not actually under threat of poverty, just under the threat of losing all his assets. Worst case, he loses his cash and gasp goes to work for someone else, probably for a really high salary (maybe one of the VCs he made rich when he sold PayPal).

Do you have a specific source for "threat of poverty in order to innovate", or are you just referring to his large investments in his companies?

“About four months ago, I ran out of cash,” Elon Musk, 2010

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/sorkin-elon-musk-of-p...

There are many other sources, and later interviews where he discusses this time of his life.

Interesting, but this is a period where he merely had a liquidity problem, not a lack of assets.

At the time, those were very questionable assets. We don't remember how close both Tesla and SpaceX came to failing. Had those not worked out, Elon really would have lost all his money.