Money is definitionally power. Its sole purpose is to convince other people to do things you want them to do. Thats what power is.
There are other sources of power besides money, but money is definitely one kind.
Consider Twitter. Musk managed to get institutions to put up a fabulous amount of money, but he still had to pay a massive amount himself. If he had $1,000 in the bank and nothing else, that deal would never have happened. Heck, even with $1 billion it wouldn’t have happened. As it was, he got to take a couple dozen billion units of monetary power and convert them into massive non-monetary power.
Give the plumber $2 million and he still won’t be taken seriously at the country club. He can try to buy influence from local politicians, but that only works until an older family disagrees with him and offers something better. Like a job for their niece. Or not to publish those pictures from that party.
There are other sources of power besides money, but money is definitely one kind.
Consider Twitter. Musk managed to get institutions to put up a fabulous amount of money, but he still had to pay a massive amount himself. If he had $1,000 in the bank and nothing else, that deal would never have happened. Heck, even with $1 billion it wouldn’t have happened. As it was, he got to take a couple dozen billion units of monetary power and convert them into massive non-monetary power.