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Monetary rewards are far from the only rewards. Ability to effect change is a broader version of that reward: Elon Musk doesn't have as much money as Zuckerburg, but there's an argument to made that he's wealthier, since he's able to enact more/different change in the world.

(Of course, Facebook has had such a ridiculously large effect on the world that argument is probably hard to win, but it illustrates what I'm trying to say)

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The way Elon was able to get into a position to affect the world was by acquiring a pile of money. It was a necessary first step. If you imagine a scenario where society enforces a cap on how rich someone is allowed to get, it's possible that Musk might not have passed the threshold of money needed to get into his current position.

More broadly, when a society won't let people become as rich as the market will let them, founders will tend to move elsewhere.

It's also possible that the threshold for innovation would be lower because of the cap.

You mean like Galt's Gulch? That would be great. We'll be better off without people who only doing things for personal gain, to amass the greatest share of the world's wealth and power that they can.

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