Mean Musk: Tesla tyrant exposed for nasty firing rampages

EDINBURGH — To South Africans, Elon Musk is a business inspiration. He left the country, building a massive business empire in the US, joining the ranks of the world's great young tech pioneers – like Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook. But, the PayPal co-founder and Tesla and SpaceX founder is developing a reputation for having a large ego and has been putting himself at loggerheads with powerful institutions, like the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC last month asked a judge to hold Tesla billionaire Elon Musk in contempt over a fresh tweet the regulator believes could have misled investors. Musk, says City AM, told his followers on 19 February that "Tesla made 0 cars in 2011, but will make around 500k in 2019". Later: "Meant to say annualised production rate at end of 2019 probably around 500k, ie 10k cars/week. Deliveries for year still estimated to be about 400k," Musk tweeted. Within Tesla, Musk is much-feared and much-hated. He goes on rampages, wildly firing people, as Wired magazine reports. – Jackie Cameron

By Thulasizwe Sithole

Elon Musk behind the doors of the Tesla organisation is allegedly a tyrant. In an in-depth feature on "life inside Tesla's production hell", Wired magazine has described the South Africa-born entrepreneur as akin to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

It tells how Elon Musk embarks on regular rampages through his operations. Breathing at the wrong time or 'checking him skeef' can easily lead to a summary dismissal, it seems.

"Sometimes Musk would terminate people; other times he would simply intimidate them. One manager had a name for these outbursts—Elon's rage firings—and had forbidden subordinates from walking too close to Musk's desk at the Gigafactory out of concern that a chance encounter, an unexpected question answered incorrectly, might endanger a career," says Wired.

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