For a corporate leader who arguably ranks as entrepreneur of the century, Elon Musk sure has a strange way of running his companies. So bizarre are his frequent outbursts, instances of supporting antisemitism and fringe views, and general eschewing of corporate civility that if he’d been a regular CEO instead of an owner and dominant shareholder, he probably would have been axed long ago by an uptight board. Musk lives in the extremes: one moment boasting astronomical, unachievable future valuations for Tesla, while in another calling a near wipeout for the shareholders of X. Yet somehow, this combustible elixir has endured while smashing the tablets you’d find in a Harvard Business School case study. Below, a distillation of Musk’s management ethos.
