On that note, I've always wondered whether a lot of this is because of his Apartheid-era South African upbringing.

Unlike a lot of White South Africans he's English, and they were viewed as outsiders by a number of Afrikaners. Same with with David Sacks being Jewish South African and Peter Thiel being the kid of German expats in ZA.

On the other hand, Roelof Botha tends to remain outside the political limelight despite being from Afrikaner political royalty (his granddad was the Foreign Minister towards the end of Apartheid).

Maybe Musk, Sacks', and Thiel's anger and political weirdness is because they felt like the perpetual outsider no matter where they were.

Musk, Sacks, Thiel, and Botha all must have been 2nd or 3rd degree connects well before the PayPal mafia even started because their parents were all at the top of the social and economic strata among White South Africans (same handful of private schools, country clubs, etc)