‘Get your F*ck out of here and don’t come back’: Was Elon Musk always the ‘Toxic Boss’?

“Sam’s Takeover”.

This is what former vice president of global media Katie Jacobs-Stanton said on Twitter about working for the company after Elon Musk’s acquisition of the company.

“In a million years, I never thought I would feel this, let alone tweet this, but I do not recommend anyone who works at Twitter nor any Twitter brand advertising due to this toxic takeover,” Stanton wrote in a tweet.

She was responding to a tweet from Platformer journalist Zoe Schiffer who reported that Musk gave Twitter employees a choice to work for Twitter’s new “hardcore” or quit.

But this isn’t the first time the word “toxic” has been linked to a company run by Musk. Tales of the tech mogul’s erratic, and often “frightening” modus operandi have long haunted me.

This, despite his massive success and celebrity status in the tech arena. Even a Tesla shareholder has accused the electric car maker’s officers and managers in a lawsuit of allowing a “toxic workplace culture” to fester at the company.

According to the complaint filed by shareholder Solomon Zhao in federal court in Austin, Texas, CEO Elon Musk And others overseeing the world’s largest electric vehicle maker breached their fiduciary duty by fostering an environment of discrimination and harassment, putting Tesla at risk of millions of dollars in potential liability.

report from Business interested The company’s “perfect glossiness obscures a disturbing and degrading reality for its workers,” the lawsuit (filed in June) states, adding that “the toxic work environment was internally created years ago.”

According to an Insider article from February, California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing sued Tesla in February 2022 after the regulator alleged that, after a three-year investigation, it had received hundreds of complaints from employees alleging racial discrimination.

A former employee who alleged that Tesla engaged in racial harassment received a $137 million judgment against the company in late 2021. A Tesla elevator operator Owen Diaz claimed that while working at the electric car maker, co-workers told him to “I go back to Africa. “

Tesla Hell

Charles Doig, who was part of the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting, on a 2018 investigation Wired report He revealed allegedly shocking details of how Elon Musk worked at Tesla — and it even put top executives on edge.

The details—mistaken decisions, firings and pursuing his vision at the expense of sane workplace culture—seem a little too close to the Twitter tales now plentiful in the media.

Even Musk’s takeover of Twitter has been a perpetually confusing and tortuous path. But after that finally happened earlier this month, there has been a constant change in policies (Twitter blue), reports of layoffs (across the platform) and now mass resignations with ‘strict guidelines’ from Musk.

Although Musk acquired Twitter with his “love of free speech,” his vision for the company charted a course to make it more profitable, experts predicted after Musk’s acquisition.

Duhigg’s report begins with the chilling account of a young engineer who was hired by Tesla in October 2017 and soon thereafter was fired, despite working 13 hours a day, seven days a week.

In an effort to sort out production, technical, and malfunctions at the Gigafactory, an angry Musk shoots the engineer when he is brought in to help him.

“Hey, my friend, this is not working!” Citing a person who overheard the conversation, the report stated that Musk yelled at the engineer. “did you do that?”

“You mean, robot programming?” said the engineer. Or design this tool?

“Did you do this?” Musk asked.

“Not sure what you’re referring to?” The engineer replied apologetically.

“You stupid idiot!” The report claimed that Musk screamed. “Get the f*ck out and don’t come back!”

According to the report, two people familiar with the matter said his manager arrived shortly after and informed them that he had been fired at Musk’s direction.

The following week, he was due to receive a review from his manager, and was only getting good news. Instead, he signed his split papers two days later.

While acknowledging Musk’s genius and vision, the report detailed accounts from company seniors about how a troubling trend emerged (according to former executives), that “if someone raises concerns or objections, Musk will sometimes pull the person’s manager aside and order it.” The offender is rehired, or possibly terminated, or not invited to meetings.” This led to the dismissal of skeptical executives “for the sake of self-preservation”.

A former high-ranking CEO told Duhigg: Musk would remark, “I have to fire someone today,” and respond to him, “No, you don’t,” to which he would reply, “No, no, I do.”

A Tesla spokeswoman said Musk is making difficult but necessary decisions.

The particular cases look eerily similar to an incident reported earlier this month, when Musk fired an Android developer named Eric Frohnhoefer, who claimed in a tweet that Musk’s rating of Twitter is slow because the app is executing “>1000 poorly paid RPCs just to display timelines” incorrect.

A Twitter duel ensued, after which a user tagged Elon Musk and asked if the CEO wanted Frohnhoefer on his team. Musk replied that he was fired.

The poster child for disorder

“It’s the poster child for the disorder,” Benjamin Breyer, former CEO of Kindred Health Care and author of a book on unconventional corporate leadership, told the Associated Press.

But despite much controversy, Musk manages to escape unscathed from the public eye.

According to experts, Musk’s ability to recover from the fallout is the result of a complex interaction between his fierce, cult-like fanbase and his transformational leadership style.

A Forbes commentary on the same compares Musk to celebrities and the influence they hold when championing a cause or making a political statement. The report indicated that Musk’s comments earlier this year led to a 60% rise in the Dogecoin level in just a few minutes, adding that this is not the first time that Musk’s statements have had a significant impact on the stock market. Musk’s tweet last year caused Tesla’s stock value to drop by $13 billion. Soon after, Tesla shareholder Chase Gharrity filed a lawsuit alleging that Musk’s Twitter habits had “serious ramifications for the company’s ability to secure funding.”

according to Business interestedThese events have been dubbed the “Elon Musk Effect,” a term that emphasizes how influential a high-profile tech celebrity can be in a world that has become dependent on technology.

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