60. Solar Surge

In the bustling sum­mer of 2021, amidst a flur­ry of projects, Elon Musk turned his focus towards rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing the solar roof indus­try. Hav­ing been a key play­er in the launch of SolarCi­ty in 2006 and lat­er orches­trat­ing its acqui­si­tion by Tes­la for $2.6 bil­lion, Musk found him­self in a legal tan­gle with Tes­la share­hold­ers, push­ing him to take dras­tic mea­sures to prove the buy­out’s worth. His strat­e­gy: oust his cousins, Peter and Lyn­don Rive, from the com­pa­ny for their sales-cen­tric approach and ven­ture into a mis­sion of hyper­growth in solar roof instal­la­tions.

Musk’s relent­less quest for inno­va­tion led to high turnover among Tes­la Ener­gy lead­ers, who were chal­lenged with near-impos­si­ble growth tar­gets and faced dis­missal upon fail­ure. RJ John­son, with his mil­i­tary pre­ci­sion, and Bri­an Dow, with his unyield­ing enthu­si­asm, were among those who took up Musk’s gaunt­let, each bring­ing a dis­tinct approach to meet Musk’s demand­ing expec­ta­tions.

The nar­ra­tive shifts to August 2021, where Musk’s hands-on involve­ment is vivid­ly depict­ed. He per­son­al­ly inspects an instal­la­tion in Boca Chi­ca, crit­i­ciz­ing inef­fi­cien­cies and demand­ing rad­i­cal sim­pli­fi­ca­tions, from the design and pack­ag­ing of the solar tiles to the instal­la­tion process­es them­selves. Despite harsh feed­back and direct con­fronta­tion with engi­neers over the prac­ti­cal chal­lenges of instal­la­tions, Musk’s inter­ven­tions spur on-the-ground inno­va­tions, albeit through a tri­al of fire. Dow and his team, despite the oppres­sive heat and oper­a­tional set­backs, man­age to demon­strate that Musk’s aggres­sive push for sim­pli­fi­ca­tion could lead to tan­gi­ble improve­ments in instal­la­tion effi­cien­cy.

Musk’s volatile yet vision­ary lead­er­ship style sur­faces as both a cat­a­lyst for break­throughs and a source of ten­sion. His oscil­lat­ing moods—from explo­sive cri­tique to calm acknowl­edg­ment of improvements—underscore the high-stakes, high-pres­sure envi­ron­ment at Tes­la Ener­gy. The detailed account of Musk ques­tion­ing every aspect of the solar roof instal­la­tion process, demand­ing engi­neers to direct­ly engage with the labor-inten­sive real­i­ty of rooftop work, and occa­sion­al­ly capit­u­lat­ing to the prac­ti­cal needs of the instal­la­tion teams, encap­su­lates a peri­od of intense exper­i­men­ta­tion and learn­ing under his watch.

Despite sig­nif­i­cant strides in process opti­miza­tion and instal­la­tion speed, Bri­an Dow faces the inher­ent lim­i­ta­tions of scal­ing a labor-inten­sive busi­ness like solar roof installations—a chal­lenge even Musk’s bril­liance could­n’t sur­mount quick­ly. Musk’s impa­tience with the slow scal­ing con­trasts with his mas­tery in man­u­fac­tur­ing, mark­ing a tense chap­ter in Tesla’s ambi­tious ven­ture into solar energy—a tes­ta­ment to Musk’s relent­less pur­suit of inno­va­tion, albeit with a recog­ni­tion of the com­plex real­i­ties of trans­form­ing the solar infra­struc­ture land­scape.