She seems to suggest that the most successful businesspeople did not start out looking to become billionaires but did so simply as a byproduct of their maniacal focus. “Shift your focus away from what you want (a billion dollars) and get deeply, intensely curious about what the world wants and needs,” Ms. Musk wrote. “It helps to have an ego, but you must be in service to something bigger if you are to inspire the people you need to help you.”

In another post, however, she did address how money — billionaire money — is thought about. “Money is rarely just money,” she wrote. “Sometimes it stands in for love or self-esteem or freedom or a sense of control over your destiny (especially if you lacked these things in childhood).”

“Sometimes it is a way of controlling others, including family members, because you don’t know how to connect to them in any other way,” she added. “Money can also serve as a scorecard to indicate how well you are doing, the impact you are having, if you are winning. Sometimes it’s not so much the money that matters, but the win is everything — particularly when you are invested heart and soul in your mission.”

Ms. Musk said the reaction to her posting was a surprise: “I had no idea it would blow up the way it did.” She has received hundreds of comments and many emails. Of course, most readers following Ms. Musk’s musings have been looking for hints about Mr. Musk himself.

She insisted that “I wasn’t specifically talking about Elon” and said she was “uneasy” that people might be reading too much into her words. Still, she said that “Elon is a fascinating character.”

Ms. Musk called herself a “watcher,” not an “insider,” saying, “I’ve been on the edge of it for a long time.” She said she had been inundated with emails about her answers and about Mr. Musk. One asked, “Does Elon have any hobbies?” No, she said. His job is his hobby. “The nature of these things is so all consuming. Unless you see that up close it is hard to understand,” she said, adding that “ ‘obsession’ has a bad rap.”

And what does Mr. Musk think about his former wife’s reflections? According to Ms. Musk, she got an email from him: “Well said,” he wrote.