Sometimes founders get booted from their company because they can't handle transition of the company processes from the bootstrapping phase to the run stably long-term phase. I think the transition is still to come for Musk's companies, but somewhere in there is a transition from a workforce of people attached to the vision and willing to give up something for it at some level vs needing to run a company with regular staff running for more nominal exchange of mutual benefit.

People can't live their lives on vision alone - even if that is what Musk is living for, he is in a far better position to defer his personal life/finances for the long term payoff than are his employees.