Compared to my $30,000/year ass, Linus is rich. He has a fucking job, you know, probably makes at least $50k from that. He gets hired to do enterprise consulting all the time, that's major bank. And people actually get paid for speaking engagements - Linus will come to your school and talk about Linux - for a price. Oh yes, Linus has money, I'm sure of it.
And that's one of my points about free software - it doesn't mean there will be a bunch of broke programmers out there. Linus wrote Linux in his spare time, and continues to direct its future, in his spare time. So why not give it away? He didn't make it for money, he made it because it was useful.