47. Open-Loop Warning

Dur­ing Kim­bal Musk’s hon­ey­moon in July 2018, Anto­nio Gra­cias informed him that Elon Musk was expe­ri­enc­ing a melt­down, despite Tes­la’s sig­nif­i­cant pro­duc­tion achieve­ments and SpaceX’s suc­cess­ful launch­es. This peri­od marked the onset of Musk’s errat­ic behav­ior amidst accom­plish­ments. Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, Musk respond­ed to a tweet about res­cu­ing the trapped Thai soc­cer team, propos­ing a mini-sub­ma­rine for the mis­sion. Col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly work­ing with SpaceX and The Bor­ing Com­pa­ny engi­neers, they devel­oped the sub, though it ulti­mate­ly remained unused due to a suc­cess­ful div­er-based res­cue.

The sit­u­a­tion esca­lat­ed when Musk insult­ed Ver­non Unsworth, a cave res­cuer, call­ing him “pedo guy” and fur­ther aggra­vat­ed the sit­u­a­tion with unfound­ed accu­sa­tions. This led to Tes­la’s stock drop­ping and Musk fac­ing back­lash, includ­ing legal actions from Unsworth. Musk’s errat­ic behav­ior, part­ly attrib­uted to his breakup with Amber Heard, prompt­ed his broth­er Kim­bal to cau­tion him, mark­ing an exam­ple of Musk’s “open-loop” crises moments.

Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, Musk con­sid­ered tak­ing Tes­la pri­vate, encour­aged by dis­cus­sions with Sau­di Ara­bi­a’s invest­ment fund. After tweet­ing about secur­ing funds for pri­va­ti­za­tion at $420 per share—a fig­ure select­ed part­ly in jest—Tesla’s stock soared but also trig­gered a reg­u­la­to­ry inves­ti­ga­tion. Musk’s tweet caught Tes­la’s board and man­age­ment off-guard, lead­ing to a mix of con­cern and dis­com­fort among stake­hold­ers, includ­ing the Saud­is. Despite ini­tial enthu­si­asm, Musk aban­doned the pri­va­ti­za­tion plan fol­low­ing push­back from investors and crit­i­cism over his uncon­ven­tion­al behav­ior.

This chap­ter high­lights Musk’s propen­si­ty for dra­mat­ic and impul­sive actions amidst sig­nif­i­cant cor­po­rate mile­stones, illus­trat­ing a volatile peri­od marked by inno­va­tion, con­fronta­tion, and reg­u­la­to­ry scruti­ny.