Among the endless scandals are those who claim to have worked for the South African-born billionaire and have revealed some interesting details. The latest is an individual who posted on Tumblr, claiming to be a former intern at SpaceX. Photo: REUTERS/Joe Skipper
Elon Musk’s role as the new chief executive of Twitter has ruffled some feathers, to say the least. The self-proclaimed king of free speech has been emphatic about the new direction the popular social media platform will be taking from now on.
Among the endless scandals are those who claim to have worked for the South African-born billionaire and have revealed some interesting details. The latest is an individual who posted on Tumblr, claiming to be a former intern at SpaceX.
In the now viral post, Tumblr user numberonecatwinner started by saying they were an intern at the spacecraft company when it was still small and before Musk’s “cult of personality” was in full swing.
“Back when I was at SpaceX, Elon was basically a child king. He was an important figurehead who provided the company with the money, power, and PR.
“But he didn’t have the knowledge or (frankly) maturity to handle day-to-day decision-making and everyone knew that. He was surrounded by people whose job was, essentially, to manipulate him into making good decisions,” they wrote.
According to the Tumblr user, managing Musk was a big part of the company culture. They claimed that even as a “lowly intern”, they heard people talking about this openly in meetings.
They went into detail about how workers knew how to present ideas that would resonate with him and that they would ignore his “insane” demands.
“People were willing to do that at SpaceX because Elon was giving them the money (and hype) to get into outer space, a mission people cared deeply about.”
When it comes to Twitter, numberonecatwinner said there is no company culture or internal structure around the problem of managing Musk.
“I think for the first time we’re seeing what happens when people actually take that man seriously and at face value.
“Worse, they’re doing this little experiment after this man has had decades of success at companies that dedicate significant resources to protecting themselves from him, and he’s too narcissistic to realise it.”
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