The informal verb grok was an invention of the science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein, whose 1961 novel Stranger in a Strange Land placed great importance on the concept of grokking. In the book, to grok is to empathize so deeply with others that you merge or blend with them.
Elon picks the cringiest of 90's hacker memes and this guy jumps right up in front.
Fun fact: Elon first tried this X.com shit with paypal, and got kicked out for gross incompetence when he tried to get everything running on windows. "for reliability." He bought back the X.com name in 2017 or so and is now trying to turn twitter into his 1990's DotCom meme.
PayPal was a product of the company purchased after the first time Musk was forced out as CEO of X.com,Musk was brought in as CEO again as a consequence of the acquisition, and a big part of why he was forced out again was that he didn’t want to focus on the PayPal product or name, which... basically everyone else involved disagreed with.
So, I think the distinction goes to the heart of what the problem was for which he was kicked out.
If you really want to get to the heart of the matter:
"After Thiel resigned following a rift over Musk pushing for the PayPal system to go on a Microsoft platform instead of Unix-based software, Musk wanted to broaden the company's ambitions as more than just a money-transfer service by making the letter X more prominent in its branding and phasing out the PayPal name ..."
https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/grok