I don't think the people that are successful working close with Elon Musk are the type that need constant validation. In my experience of having occasional day-to-day interactions, he's awkward but means well. He's just laser focused on solving problems, and it never stops. Sometimes the solution is to pay for an employee's laser eye surgery on a whim. Sometimes the solution is to fire a dozen people.
Are you specifically asking about financial compensation? There was the occasional token salary bump, bonus or stock option grant. Nothing to get too excited about. We would all laugh/cry about getting 0.7% raises and then go to the bar. I was never concerned about the details of my compensation while there, and I didn't spend any energy worrying about it. I just focused on making space ships. Financially and career-wise, it's embarrassing how positively fruitful my time there was. By far the best choice I could have made coming out of school.
Taking a year of parental leave is just a normal thing in most developed countries.
There's also secondary markets, where people are willing to pay a premium for any shares they can get their hands on. That's not in the company's best interest, though, and so it is discouraged.
I believe Elon needs SpaceX to be incredibly profitable in order to fund his Mars ambitions. I think his point is that the company's finances are a means rather than an end?
I'm not bragging about paternity leave, I was responding to the parent post's claim that I sacrificed quality family time and would regret it. The opposite is true; my time spent working there has had a compounding effect on my finances and career opportunities. I've had the luxury of working on my own terms for many years, on meaningful projects intrinsically worth my time. My memories of working at SpaceX grow fonder with age.