He started off wealthy from his dad's blood emerald enterprise. Then he really took off buying into PayPal, a middle man service for making secure money transactions online. Literally got rich off the dot-com boom. That is textbook definition of right place, right time.

Every tech company he owns, he bought. He doesn't do any of the engineering. The only genius he possesses is in creating public hype for products he has invested in. It is 100% persona.