Some employees are OK with working immense amounts of unpaid overtime to please a Musk-type boss. That's a very different situation than the type of employee who has a life outside of work and wants to get paid fairly.
I like my job. I like my hobbies better. I'd still not trade hobbies for job just to give users a feature week early. I'm fine with working extra occasionally but that's what I signed for by picking jobs in ops, not because I think that's good.
Also, OP is OBVIOUSLY talking about people that maybe have few months of savings and have them getting fired heavily affect their lives, not people earning 250k
Many people enjoy work.
Most people do find fulfillment out of work, many even enjoy it, myself included. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't fight to be compensated for what we put in, and doesn't mean we shouldn't practice solidarity with coworkers, many of whom don't have the time to work as much as we do (for example a working mother).
Everyone, even billionaires undergo social conditioning from an early age. Some people have a need to be successful in order to feel good about themselves. they feel they need to "be" someone. And for some, their work becomes a part of their identity.
Becoming a billionaire doesn't free you from all the stuff that's been conditioned into you.
I called Elon’s boss and he corroborated it. His boss even makes him use one of those punchcard machines—how quaint!
Here's my hypothesis as to why people are so glib about throwing away their lives for their employer:
People depend on their employer for their entire livelyhood. This day and age, without a pay check, you can't have any basic needs: Shelter, food or water and you'd be out on the street or worse: the average homeless person (it's shocking) lives 30 years less than a housed one.
So, it's no surprise that a large segement of people end up with stockholm's syndrom from their employer. they begin to identify with their captor and even take on their values and their beliefs. If you're kidnapped, at least you have some hope of escape. but when you're employed, you are the prison guard who holds the key. so you have no hope of escape, this amplifies the stockholm's syndrom.