According to a new book titled ‘Power Play: Tesla, Elon Musk and the Bet of the Century’, Tesla’s CEO is kinda rude, to say the least.
Elon Musk’s rude behavior and anger issues are nothing new. Now, there is a new book that maps both Tesla and Musk’s journey and his habit of cursing and insulting others. It reports a series of anecdotes displaying the CEO’s turbulent relationship with its staff, top-ranking officials, and even strangers who had to face his frequent shoutings and abuses.
The book titled ‘Power Play: Tesla, Elon Musk and the Bet of the Century’ is written by Wall Street Journal reporter Tim Higgins. It is about the “most controversial titans of Silicon Valley” and traces the rise from just a startup to one of the most valuable companies.
For instance, the book mentions a particular incident dating back to 2016 when Josh Ensign, then Tesla’s VP, and Musk had a heated argument on overburdened workers. That time, Musk reportedly said “I can be on my own private island with naked supermodels, drinking mai tais, but I’m not. I’m in the factory working my a** off, so I don’t want to hear about how hard everyone else in the factory works.”
And of course, these incidents were apparently a sort of routine. Musk would frequently leave meetings and lash out at anyone he considered a liability for the company. The list even includes top executives; before every weekly meeting, executive committee members would jokingly discuss “Who would he be devouring this week?” In another incident from 2010, he would have abruptly left a meeting on Tesla’s IPO, saying “I don’t have time for this. I’ve got to launch a f******* rocket!”
Further, the book highlights an episode from the same year when Musk would have yelled at an engineer, “I’m going to sell a f*** load of cars, so whatever suspension you need so I can sell a f*** load of cars – that’s the suspension I want.” This particular incident occurred as Tesla was busy producing the Model S sedan, its first mass-market EV. The engineer had asked for Musk’s opinion on if he wanted the car’s suspension to be more BMW-like or Lexus-like.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO’s “short fuse” habit is evident from his screaming and shouting at Peter Rawlinson, then Model S chief engineer. He said, “I don’t believe you!” while pointing his finger at him. After that, Rawlinson left Tesla to start his own EV company, Lucid Motors.
The book’s author notes that from 2016 onwards, Musk’s conduct became “increasingly unpredictable, indiscriminate, and public.” The reason behind this would be the repeated failures in developing the affordable Model 3 sedan, the company’s then make-or-break car. Many other events would have been “ugly and public enough” to start an investigation on the CEO, according to Higgins.
As expected, Musk rejected the claims, tweeting, “Higgins managed to make his book both false *and* boring” and Tesla hasn’t given any official statement over the allegations made in the book yet.
You can purchase the book here (Amazon link)
