What does ls show?
you can escape special charcters with \ something like \'folder\'\$\'\\003\' might work
be careful with rm -rf as you might delete your entire disk if done badly. use some other command to test if it targets the correct directory like ls \'folder\'\$\'\\003\'
You are mixing up the units here. Value is not a real money, and you can't pay salaries with value. You can pay salaries with cash.
To actually get how many LOC in a kernel per person per year they produce. You need to look at git history, and do data science on it. It's doable and easy but not really my area of expertise.
You need to account for that vast majority of contributors make just one patch and they are never heard from again. They don't work full time, or even part time on the kernel.