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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow SpaceX staff coped with Musk as boss in the past
Yeah, I know, another Musk post. This was found on Tumblr and should be treated with the same trust/suspicion you'd show toward anything anonymous found on the web, but others who've worked at SpaceX say it rings true:
numberonecatwinner
I was an intern at SpaceX years ago, back it when it was a much smaller company after Elon got hair plugs, but before his cult of personality was in full swing. I have some insight to offer here.
Back when I was at SpaceX, Elon was basically a child king. He was an important figurehead who provided the company with the money, power, and PR, but he didnt have the knowledge or (frankly) maturity to handle day-to-day decision making and everyone knew that. He was surrounded by people whose job was, essentially, to manipulate him into making good decisions.
Managing Elon was a huge part of the company culture. Even I, as a lowly intern, would hear people talking about it openly in meetings. People knew how to present ideas in a way that would resonate with him, they knew how to creatively reinterpret (or ignore) his many insane demands, and they even knew how to stage manage parts of the physical office space so that it would appeal to Elon.
The funniest example of stage management I can remember is this dude on the IT security team. He had a script running in a terminal on one of his monitors that would output random garbage, Matrix-style, so that it always looked like he was doing Important Computer Things to anyone who walked by his desk. Second funniest was all the people I saw playing WoW at their desks after ~5pm, who did it in the office just to give the appearance that they were working late.
People were willing to do that at SpaceX because Elon was giving them the money (and hype) to get into outer space, a mission people cared deeply about. The company also grew with and around Elon. There were layers of management between individual employees and Elon, and those managers were experienced managers of Elon. Again, I cannot stress enough how much of the company culture was oriented around managing this one guy.
Twitter has neither of those things going for it. There is no company culture or internal structure around the problem of managing Elon Musk, and I think for the first time were seeing what happens when people actually take that man seriously and at face value. Worse, theyre doing this little experiment after this man has had decades of success at companies that dedicate significant resources to protecting themselves from him, and hes too narcissistic to realize it.
This post is long so Ill leave you with my favorite Elon story. One day at work, I got an all hands email telling me that it was Elons birthday and there was going to be a mandatory surprise party for him in the cafeteria. Presumably Elon also got this email, but whatever. We all marched down into the cafeteria, dimmed the lights, and waited. Elon was led out by his secretary (who he hadnt fired yet) and made a big show of being fake surprised and touched that we were there. Then they wheeled out the cake.
OK, so, I want you to imagine the biggest penis cake youve ever seen. Like the king of novelty sex cakes. Only its frosted white, and the balls have been frosted to look like fire and smoke. This was Elons birthday rocket cake.
For as long as I live, I will never forget the look on everyones face in that dark room of mostly-male engineers when he made a wish and cut into the tip.
https://www.tumblr.com/numberonecatwinner/701567544684855296/elon-wyd
I was an intern at SpaceX years ago, back it when it was a much smaller company after Elon got hair plugs, but before his cult of personality was in full swing. I have some insight to offer here.
Back when I was at SpaceX, Elon was basically a child king. He was an important figurehead who provided the company with the money, power, and PR, but he didnt have the knowledge or (frankly) maturity to handle day-to-day decision making and everyone knew that. He was surrounded by people whose job was, essentially, to manipulate him into making good decisions.
Managing Elon was a huge part of the company culture. Even I, as a lowly intern, would hear people talking about it openly in meetings. People knew how to present ideas in a way that would resonate with him, they knew how to creatively reinterpret (or ignore) his many insane demands, and they even knew how to stage manage parts of the physical office space so that it would appeal to Elon.
The funniest example of stage management I can remember is this dude on the IT security team. He had a script running in a terminal on one of his monitors that would output random garbage, Matrix-style, so that it always looked like he was doing Important Computer Things to anyone who walked by his desk. Second funniest was all the people I saw playing WoW at their desks after ~5pm, who did it in the office just to give the appearance that they were working late.
People were willing to do that at SpaceX because Elon was giving them the money (and hype) to get into outer space, a mission people cared deeply about. The company also grew with and around Elon. There were layers of management between individual employees and Elon, and those managers were experienced managers of Elon. Again, I cannot stress enough how much of the company culture was oriented around managing this one guy.
Twitter has neither of those things going for it. There is no company culture or internal structure around the problem of managing Elon Musk, and I think for the first time were seeing what happens when people actually take that man seriously and at face value. Worse, theyre doing this little experiment after this man has had decades of success at companies that dedicate significant resources to protecting themselves from him, and hes too narcissistic to realize it.
This post is long so Ill leave you with my favorite Elon story. One day at work, I got an all hands email telling me that it was Elons birthday and there was going to be a mandatory surprise party for him in the cafeteria. Presumably Elon also got this email, but whatever. We all marched down into the cafeteria, dimmed the lights, and waited. Elon was led out by his secretary (who he hadnt fired yet) and made a big show of being fake surprised and touched that we were there. Then they wheeled out the cake.
OK, so, I want you to imagine the biggest penis cake youve ever seen. Like the king of novelty sex cakes. Only its frosted white, and the balls have been frosted to look like fire and smoke. This was Elons birthday rocket cake.
For as long as I live, I will never forget the look on everyones face in that dark room of mostly-male engineers when he made a wish and cut into the tip.
https://www.tumblr.com/numberonecatwinner/701567544684855296/elon-wyd
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How SpaceX staff coped with Musk as boss in the past (Original Post)
Emrys
Nov 2022
OP
SunSeeker
(51,523 posts)1. Yes, Tesla had to do the same thing with Elon after he bought Tesla.
Elon is a narcissistic, bigoted, immature fraud. He was born on 3rd base and thinks he hit a triple. Like Trump, he relied on his daddy's big bucks to get started in the business buying game.
SharonAnn
(13,771 posts)2. Sounds like dealing with Trump.
BlueWaveNeverEnd
(7,826 posts)3. managing a boss with insecurities is difficult... i know
calimary
(81,127 posts)4. Great story!
Ford_Prefect
(7,873 posts)5. Oy, what a schmuck!
steventh
(2,143 posts)6. What a fun funny story.
I don't care if it's true or not. But it might be. Especially the birthday cake part.
John Ludi
(589 posts)7. I've had
a couple bosses like that...but I've always been the "look at the naked emperor" type, and I usually ended up quitting after raising a big stink or three.
Yep...I'm that guy.
tanyev
(42,523 posts)8. I like CEOs and Presidents that don't have to be "managed".
LetMyPeopleVote
(144,945 posts)9. For this thread