That’s the point. Musk doesn’t need to maintain the ad business. Reduce the headcount, get enough subscriptions to break even and take a write off on the deflated value of the business. Just making it a great product, free of ads and better at spam.
I can understand people not liking Musk, but I don’t understand why that leads to “he only cares about money” or “his business success is sheer opportunism” when those are wrong.
Such assertions seem to be emotional rather than rational. “I don’t like Elon therefore he is 100% bad in every way and nothing he has ever done is skill”. Surely the more likely situation is - he’s sometimes good, sometimes bad, and his business success is a combination of hard work, skill, luck, and timing.
Even if you’ve made Elon your personal enemy, surely you can accept that eg SpaceX is an amazing achievement.
Musk didn’t have much capital at the time. They almost ran out of money.
Your argument might apply to Bezos, but not to Musk.