I think the fact that hes billionaire has little to do with the market manipulation but instead it's because many people have been overhyping elon due to tesla and spacex, you know all the space things like mars ,etc
making people really comfortable and respectful with elon but unfortunately elon himself disregard all the respect and try to make money from the people following him
he has been accused of market manipulation many times, he definitely gonna do it again
We can't say "little to do", that is still one of the most major reasons. You think if Elon Musk was just a millionaire, or just a regular person there would be a chance he would still be listened? Or if he was CEO-Founder of Tesla but Tesla was a struggling company that barely worth anything and barely sold any cars he would still get attention?
I mean being the richest person in the world for a while and being second now I think definitely gives him the platform. I am sure there are other rich people and we do not care about any of them so that means being rich is not enough that's true, him being second richest person in the world is not the reason he has the power to manipulate crypto BUT that one is the reason why people saw what he says in the first place, after that it was all his weirdness that kept people with him but it was a requirement at the start.