I went on a date once with a guy that used his IRA to buy stock options, is that normal?

This one guy I went on a date with said he owned a business. I pried further with questions and he said it was stock options on a large scale. He showed me his portfolio and it dipped in 2020 from 600 to 300k. I said, “did you really lose $300k in a single day?” And he said yes, but he learned from that and made sure it wouldn’t happen again. Upon closer inspection, he has been using a traditional IRA to do the stock options. wtf? I asked, “uhh, so this is cold hard cash you’re making monthly?” And he said yep! I was like “that says IRA. Isn’t there a penalty to take it out?” He was like “well, yeah but I never take it out and the penalty is less than what it gains.” Dude lied every single answer, I swear. Has anyone else come across someone who does that with retirement accounts? Is that as insane as I’m finding it?