Tyrant or genius? Elon Musk's extreme management culture - voila! technology

Elon Musk (Photo: Reuters)

A study carried out at the University of New South Wales determined that people with a short fuse, who tend to get angry quickly, are smarter and more intelligent.

These things should not be seen as a recommendation to shorten your fuse, but as a basis for the purpose of understanding what is going on in the mind of Elon Musk, the man behind companies such as Tesla, SpaceX and other groundbreaking companies, whose fortune this year was estimated at approximately 267 billion dollars.

In an interview he gave to the Wall Street Journal, Elon Musk described himself as a "nanomanager".

That is, he lacks the ability to trust his colleagues and subordinates at work.

If a "micro-manager" observes closely, controls his subordinates and takes the trouble to remind and explain their work to them frequently, a nano-manager does not accept anyone's word without checking it personally, and doing so while going deeply into details.

Musk's self-image corresponds directly with his statement at an investment forum, held in New York.

He claimed that since he bought Twitter he works 120 hours a week instead of the 70 or 80 hours he was used to.

"Once Twitter finds the right path, it will be much easier to manage," said the man who gave birth to PayPal.

"Diamonds are created under pressure and Elon Musk is a master at creating diamonds" - Dolly Singh, head of talent hunting at the civilian space agency SpaceX, which was founded by Musk and currently leads the field, testified about him.

In 2018, Tesla employees claimed in a press interview that Musk's management method cost the company a lot of money and time.

Musk did not respond and on the other hand wanted to share his management philosophy with Tesla employees: in the email he distributed he wrote that the number of meetings should be reduced, their length should be reduced and that people who do not contribute to the conversation should immediately leave the meeting.

According to him, abandoning a meeting is not rude.

He added that employees are allowed to skip the chain of command to improve communication within the company.

In another email, Musk addressed Tesla executives and wrote that they must choose one of three ways when he addresses them in an email with explicit instructions: explain why he is wrong in the instruction, ask for clarification of the instructions, or simply follow the instructions.

A manager who does not act in one of the ways will be asked to resign immediately.

"If you said something wrong or made one mistake, he's going to decide you're an idiot and there's nothing you can do to change his mind about you," a senior engineering director at Tesla said of Musk.

Other employees claimed that Musk has a short fuse and zero tolerance, is unpredictable and does what he wants, when he wants.

Musk denied an angry outburst at employees and claimed that he gives sharp and clear feedback that can sometimes be interpreted as mockery.

Before Musk began the harvest, Twitter had about 7,500 employees, less than the number employed by competitors such as Meta, LinkedIn and TikTok.

According to the Washington Post, even if Musk's buyout deal were to fall through, Twitter would face massive cuts to staff and infrastructure.

The scale of the cuts, which has never been reported in the media, helps explain why decision makers were eager to sell: Musk's offer, while hostile, was tantamount to a platinum card for the struggling company—one that might help management avoid painful announcements and humiliation of the workforce.

But even if there is an excess of human capital in the company, Musk's cuts and especially the way he operates, will put Twitter users at risk of having their accounts hacked and exposed to offensive content.

In recent weeks, 3,700 of the employees received an email informing them of the end of their employment with the company.

After the fact, the company realized that it had laid off many employees essential to its day-to-day operations and hurried to woo them back to work.

What seems like Musk's $44 billion unbridled adventure may turn out to be a clear writing on the wall.

Musk has already announced that he is just warming up and seems to be enjoying the additional scandal on his illustrious resume.

And on a personal note, the recovery of society is a fundamentally right and worthy thing, but its implementation requires taking moderate and informed steps towards those around us.

This is what the Greek playwright Sophocles said: as an individual, you will only govern well in the desert.

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