Tesla’s executives might love Elon Musk, lavishing him with massive pay packages to beg him to stay on, but that doesn’t mean he loves them back.
A recent interview with Tesla’s former president of global sales, delivery, and service Jon McNeill by the Washington Post revealed new details about Musk’s personal motivations as CEO of Tesla. In one particularly bizarre moment, McNeill recalls that Musk once declared that his ideal work week at the electric carmaker involved as little work as possible — so he can maximize his time playing with rocket ships.
“When I asked [Musk] what success looked like,” McNeill told WaPo, “he said, ‘success is getting me down to one day a week at Tesla so I can get back to my first love, which is rockets.'”
That singular goal, McNeill explained in a recently released book called “The Algorithm,” would form Musk’s true north during the executive’s three-year stint as Tesla president. Other issues might rear their heads requiring McNeill to bug Musk, but freeing up time remained Musk’s primary motivation, WaPo reports.
The odd working relationship is exemplified in one of McNeill’s first run-ins with Musk, when the president suggested that Tesla sales staff follow up with customers before embarking on new test drives. The suggestion worked, moving units, but McNeill had made it without first consulting the CEO.
“I’ve got to apologize to you,” McNeill recalled telling Musk. “I made a decision in your business that’s yours to make, not mine.” Musk’s reaction was telling: “you’re going to fit in here just fine.”
This absentee portrait is in massive contrast with the one Musk previously tried to paint of himself: the workaholic CEO who literally slept on the factory floor when production timelines ran long. He carried that mythic vibe onto the federal government last year with DOGE, whose staffers were said to work 120 hours a week, even as their billionaire boss publically bragged about the gaming computer he had installed in his office.
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