Did Elon lead his other companies this way and we just didn’t know? Or has he suddenly lost his ability to make good decisions?
It seems minor now but at the time he was pushing for PayPal's tech stack to ditch Linux and use a Microsoft stack instead. Peter Thiel backstabbed him to oust him for that.
I know someone that works at Tesla and they say that when Elon comes around there's an aura of terror. They've personally seen him firing people on a whim during one of his "visits".
Neighbor works for SpaceX and says the same thing.
Board of Directors: "We're not going to do that".
I don't think it was backstabbing on Thiel's part (though I despise the man, personally) - there was very little in the way of cogent argument beyond Musk not really knowing Linux at the time. And to be clear, he wasn't CEO because he was a founder/PayPal was his idea/his technical vision and direction - he was only CEO because he was the largest shareholder of the two companies when they merged.
If you antagonize enough super-stressed-out employees, I'd think one will eventually lose it.
If he doesn't visit for a few weeks, nothing gets done.
They save all the "stuff that requires physical activity" to when he visits, some of it for show, and actually are doing the real work when he's not there. It's hilarious to think that what you can see from the fence line, constitutes an assessment of what work is being done
Wow, if his leadership results in such a bad situation at SpaceX I can only image how poor the result will be at Twitter with whatever is left.
The workers have noticed Elon likes to see everyone acting busy and has a propensity for causing a lot of trouble when he doesn't see what he likes.
Therefore, they act busy when he's around, and go back to normal, productive work when he's not.
Edit: The point is not that we all reside in toxic workplaces. The point is that there is no upside to interacting with a CEO. A parallel situation might be giving a loaded pistol with a child. In that case, the upside is that they now have one thousand and one chew toys instead of one thousand. The downside is that they can kill themselves accidentally. Outside of a few specific people in a company, a CEO most likely can't make anyone's life better. However, if, for example, you're coding and a pornographic ad appears in Firefox on your second monitor, then your employment isn't likely to continue much longer.
Just because people are scared of the CEO doesn't mean most CEOs weaponize this into a tool of micromanagement.
Fuck, I've gotten a reprimand for pointing out how Musk is perhaps not the best role model when someone mentioned they idolized him. That learned me.
Maybe after 2 or 3 times it gets better. Build up a rapport first.
There have been countless studies showing that long hours lead to more mistakes, worse productivity, decreased motivation, worse health, and burnout. Workers are also more likely to leave for a job with a better work/life balance if given the chance.
It seems many corporate execs haven't gotten the message yet, and I don't know why.
There's few tests to root out bad managers. The damage bad management is capable of is.. impressive, extensive.
Good managers help their direct reports, helping them succeed and stand out at promotion time.
Guess which will usually get the promotion?
With Twitter he is an outsider coming in to a company serving a very different market, with existing structures and projects he can't know about.