Elon Musk's 9 p.m. all-hands Tesla meeting shows what he can get away with
Elon Musk's 9 p.m. all-hands Tesla meeting shows what he can get away with ·Business Insider
Tim Paradis
5 min read
Elon Musk's evening all-hands at Tesla is a reminder that he can get away with more than other CEOs.
But a leadership expert said Musk risked appearing disorganized with the late last-minute meeting.
Musk has previously drawn attention for his all-in approach to work.
With any other CEO, it would have been a five-alarm emergency.
Yet, Elon Musk's recent last-minute after-hours all-hands with Tesla workers was a reminder that the company's front man — perhaps singularly free from the norms other chiefs abide by — can get away with a lot.
The big question is: How much?
Even though he's convinced employees over the years to work in a tent and sleep at the office, his leeway with workers, investors, and customers isn't endless, Musk observers told Business Insider.
"There's no version where he's in this many things all at once and it goes well," said Wil Schroter, the founder and CEO of Startups.com, a tech accelerator.
He pointed to the sheer number of items on Musk's to-do list — from controlling a half dozen companies, including Tesla, X, and SpaceX, to trying to remake the federal government.
A big ask of workers
Melissa Schilling, a professor of management and organizations at New York University's Stern School of Business, said Musk's decision to hold a companywide meeting with little notice that kicked off at about 9 p.m. in Austin — after tech glitches delayed the start — sent several negative signals.
Schilling, who has studied Musk's career and businesses, added that among those signals was a sense of uncertainty.
"That's a really dangerous position for someone who's so central to the brand," Schilling said.
Starting a meeting when bedtime routines may be underway can ding worker morale, too.
If you signal to employees that their time isn't valuable, "you really damage that relationship," she said.
It's one thing to flout some corporate norms in the early stages of a company, but Schilling said Musk was well past that honeymoon.
"His actions affect too many people now to get away with the boys-will-be-boys behavior," she said.
Musk didn't respond to a request for comment from BI.
Schroter said that Musk often gets given the benefit of the doubt but that if he had to deal with a major crisis, such as Tesla shares dropping 80% from their December high (they're down by about 50%), Musk stans would be less forgiving.
In such a case, "you don't get to go screw around with the government and do cuts," Schroter said, referring to Musk's other role atop President Donald Trump's DOGE advisory group.
Crashing on the couch
It's not the first time Musk's attitude to work has drawn attention.
The world's richest man has famously said he slept on the floor at the Tesla factory when the company was mired in "production hell" for its Model 3. He's also said he crashed on the couch while in the throes of refashioning Twitter into X.
Even though some founder-mode flourish is part of Musk's operating model, Schilling said the evening Tesla meeting suggested unpreparedness and that he only belatedly realized something important was happening at the company.
Tesla has suffered recent instances of vandalism to its vehicles and at its showrooms, which Musk has attributed to those on the political left, and a slide in the stock.
The carmaker's shares regained some ground Friday as investors appeared heartened by Musk's message during Thursday's meeting. In it, he implored workers to hang onto their shares and talked up the company's Cybercab.
'A little bit chaotic'
Dorie Clark, a communication coach who teaches at Columbia Business School and wrote the book "The Long Game," said one reason Musk can swing a last-minute evening meeting that in virtually any other company would raise eyebrows or worry staff is that most people already expect him to be "a little bit chaotic" and anything but traditional.
"This is a person who smoked dope on the Joe Rogan show," she said.
Clark said Musk's long-standing reputation as an improvisational, emotional CEO might blunt possible concerns that he's erratic.
She said the meeting could have instead sent a message to employees that Musk is still paying attention and cares about his companies.
Yet, Clark said, that alone likely won't be enough to continue to buoy worker and investor sentiment without further action to show he's engaged in addressing challenges at Tesla.
The Steve Jobs effect
Schroter, who runs the tech accelerator, said Musk's decision to speak directly to workers was more effective than sending an email or relying on a corporate comms team.
"There's something different when you stand in front of people, even if it's on Zoom, where they see you talking, they see you emote," Schroter said.
It's a way of showing you share their concerns, he said. Yet, Schroter added, how much leaders can ask of workers is often bound by "how much they're willing to follow you through a fire."
He said that for Musk, like Apple's cofounder Steve Jobs, workers' loyalty is often high enough that employees will strive to meet all expectations, including long hours.
"There's only one Elon Musk," he said. "This isn't me fanboying him at all. I'm just calling it what it is."
Schroter said that Musk's track record shows he usually comes out ahead but that " 99.9% of CEOs" don't have the luxury to ask as much as he does.
"The people that follow him — the people that work for him — believe in the cult of Elon," Schroter said. "Most founders or CEOs don't have anywhere near that kind of pull."
