{"id":180002,"date":"2017-08-11T18:22:00","date_gmt":"2017-08-11T23:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2017\/08\/11\/like-this-guy-is-going-to-save-the-world\/"},"modified":"2017-08-11T18:22:00","modified_gmt":"2017-08-11T23:22:00","slug":"like-this-guy-is-going-to-save-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2017\/08\/11\/like-this-guy-is-going-to-save-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Like This Guy is Going to Save the World"},"content":{"rendered":"

For 12 years Elon Musk had a personal assistant. When she asked for a raise, he told her to take a vacation so he could see how essential her services were.<\/p>\n

When she came back, he he told her that her services were not required, and he fired her<\/a>. (See also here<\/a> and here<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Elon Musk<\/a> is a busy billionaire who you might imagine has a lot of people working for him to keep all of his various projects afloat, but Business Inside<\/i>r<\/a> brought up an anecdote from a biography of Musk today about how he once fired his long-time assistant for asking for a raise. (Update: Elon Musk has denied the biography\u2019s account on Twitter.)<\/p>\n

Look, obviously being the super rich guy behind some of the most influential American companies in recent history is going to make you feel important and probably turn into kind of a jerk. But this anecdote is almost something else, so here it is, as summarized by Business Insider from Musk\u2019s biography, Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, by author Ashlee Vance:<\/span><\/p>\n

\ufeffAccording to Vance, the assistant, Mary Beth Brown, asked Musk for a significant raise after she\u2019d been working with him for 12 years. In response, Musk told Brown to take two weeks off, during which he would assume her responsibilities and see whether she was critical to his success.<\/p>\n

When Brown returned, Musk told her he didn\u2019t need her anymore.<\/p>\n

Musk also told Vance that he offered Brown another position at the company but that she never returned to the office after that.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, of course, this is just an anecdote in a biography, so the telling of what happened may not be exactly as it actually happened. Does it sound like this is something Musk would do? Yeah. Does anyone think Musk can actually operate without an assistant? You probably shouldn\u2019t. <\/p>\n

But! After some brief digging to see if I could find something else, I found a Quora posting from the verified profile of Justine Musk<\/a>, ex-wife of Elon, that practically doubles down on Mary Beth Brown\u2019s story, as well as how insane it is to have any sort of relationship with Elon Musk:<\/span><\/p>\n

\ufeffMary Beth Brown started working for Elon soon after we moved to LA twelve or thirteen years ago (Elon and I were still married then). MB was an exceptional and devoted employee of Elon\u2019s and lovely to deal with on a personal level. She gave her life to the job \u2014 and to our family \u2014 and the news of her departure was a shock to me.<\/p>\n

Apparently (according, I believe, to Ashlee Vance, who wrote the book on Elon), MB asked for a raise. E told her that if she was truly critical to SpaceX, it should not be able to operate in her absence (or something to that effect). He suggested a 3-week experiment to test this hypothesis\/her worth. This reminds me of something similar he once said to me, many years ago, after I came back from a week\u2019s visit with my family in Canada \u2014 that his life had operated quite smoothly in my absence. He was letting me know that I was an incompetent house manager. (He was not wrong.) So of the different stories I have heard behind MB\u2019s departure from SpaceX, this is the one that resonates with me. (Although you would *never* use the word \u2018incompetent\u2019 in association with MB!)<\/p>\n

Wherever MB is and whatever she is doing, I hope her life is fabulous. She and I have not always been on the same side, but I have \u2014 and will always have \u2014 tremendous respect for that remarkable woman.<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Abraham Lincoln once said , “I care not much for a man’s religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.”<\/p>\n

By this standard, Elon Musk’s cult of well \u2026\u2026\u2026 Elon Musk  \u2026\u2026\u2026 severely lacking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For 12 years Elon Musk had a personal assistant. When she asked for a raise, he told her to take a vacation so he could see how essential her services were. When she came back, he he told her that her services were not required, and he fired her. (See also here and here) Elon …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[395,450,364,367,406,382,403],"class_list":["post-180002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-computer","tag-employment","tag-evil","tag-internet","tag-stupid","tag-technology","tag-wanker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180002"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180002\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}