Lot’s of people wonder how Elon Musk is able to run multiple large companies at the same time. He’s the CEO of Tesla and Space X and also founded and helps run Neuralink and The Boring Company. That is would be an outrageous workload for four people, so how can it be possible for one person to do it and keep them all working.
To answer, I think we need to change our understanding of what it means to be a CEO.
When we think of most entrepreneurial CEO’s we think of someone in charge of the day to day running of a company. Someone that is the ultimate foundation of responsibility for a company. The place where all the decisions lead to. People like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, or Tim Cook.
I think Elon is a different type of entrepreneur. Not a maker or a manager, but a super recruiter.
What separates Elon’s companies from other companies in the industries he operates in is just how damn cool they are.
Tesla is by far the coolest and most future-facing car company. Same goes for Space X. They have great stories about the goals they are working towards and great brands. This allows them to attract the best talent.
Think about being a young rocket engineer, are you going to want to work for Space X or Lockheed Martin or a government agency?
Think about being an automotive engineer, are you going to want to work at Tesla or General Motors?
It’s not even close. Through his ability to create compelling brands that exist to solve big problems, Elon has set himself up to capture the best and brightest engineering talent in the country. This is a massive advantage over the old and bureaucratic institutions he is competing against and will continue to be so as the cultural shift from work as a security and safety to work as a source purpose and adventure continues.
Most CEO’s can’t be the head of more than one company because where they excel is the actual running of the company. What makes Elon special is his ability to identify a big existential problem, prototype a product and create a brand with a compelling narrative that becomes category king of that solution (when you think of electric cars, you think Tesla; when anyone under 25 thinks of a space company, they think Space X, not NASA; you might not know of a tunneling company, but if you do it’s the Boring Company).
Since he excels in the creation of a big problem-solving company and the continued branding of it, it makes sense that he can do this for many problems at the same time. His role as CEO of Tesla doesn’t harm his ability to be CEO of Space X, it adds to it because it continues to feed his super recruiting ability.
Disclaimer: I don’t know anything about the day to day running of Elon’s companies. This is a theory on why they could be successful and defy expectations because of the massive advantage his skills give him when it comes to recruiting engineering talent. If he is not able to bring in and retain the skilled executives and Tim Cook types he needs to actually run the companies, then this advantage won’t matter in the long-term.
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