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Elon Musk’s Top Talent Keeps Quitting · Elon Musk Podcast

• 0:01
  Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Elon Musk
• 0:04
  Podcast. This is a show where we discuss
• 0:07
  the critical crossroads, the Shape, SpaceX, Tesla X, The
• 0:11
  Boring Company, and Neurolink. I'm your host, Will Walden.
• 0:16
  Elon Musk is losing top executives across Tesla and XAI,
• 0:19
  and the exits are piling up faster than replacements.
• 0:23
  Why are so many of his closest lieutenants bailing on roles
• 0:27
  that once gave them influence over some of the world's most
• 0:29
  valuable companies? Over the past year, Musk has
• 0:33
  seen a steady churn of senior leadership from nearly every
• 0:36
  part of his empire. Key figures from Tesla's U.S.
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  sales team, the battery division, public policy office,
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  and AI units have walked out on him.
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  Now X AI the pace is even more aggressive with both the CFO and
• 0:53
  the general counsel quitting within days of each other.
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  These aren't mid tier managers leaving for a better position
• 1:00
  after a few years. Many of them are the same people
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  must personally tapped to drive Tesla's long term bets and XA is
• 1:08
  newest experiments. Now the reasons behind the
• 1:11
  departure split into two camps, fatigue and friction.
• 1:15
  Some left after years of intense work, saying they wanted to
• 1:18
  build something new or take some time off.
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  But others are leaving completely burned out, fed up
• 1:24
  with Musk's politics, are unwilling to keep pace with
• 1:27
  constant layoffs and sudden shifts in strategy.
• 1:30
  Several who recently quit described a culture of
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  instability where priorities change without warning and
• 1:37
  Musk's personal feuds bleed into daily work expectations.
• 1:43
  Now inside Tesla, Musk sudden shift away from EVs toward
• 1:46
  robotics and AI has left veterans of that company
• 1:49
  confused and frustrated. In April 2024, the company laid
• 1:52
  off 14,000 people and cancelled its low cost EV program, known
• 1:58
  internally as NV 91 or Model 2. And that project was seen as
• 2:03
  essential for Tesla's original mission of global
• 2:06
  electrification. It's shut down triggered exits
• 2:09
  from Daniel Ho, the executive who led the initiative, as well
• 2:13
  as other longtime leaders in charging, powertrain and battery
• 2:16
  systems. Now at XAI, Musk's approach to
• 2:19
  competition and leadership has created a lot of tension.
• 2:22
  CFO Mike Libertar, he quit after only three months and moved to
• 2:28
  Open AI, the company that Musk also Co founded and now sees as
• 2:33
  a threat. He publicly said he worked more
• 2:35
  than 120 hours a week and spent every day in the office.
• 2:39
  That's not a way to live, people.
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  General Counsel Robert Kiel left after 16 months, posting an AI
• 2:45
  generated video of a man shoveling coal while screaming.
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  Both were among a string of senior staff who questioned
• 2:51
  whether Musk's intensity had crossed into dysfunction.
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  The multiple recent exits at X AI said the rivalry with Open AI
• 3:00
  had become a complete obsession from Musk.
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  Since chat GP TS release in 2022, Musk has pushed his teams
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  to match or surpass it at all costs.
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  Now, some insiders believe the obsession drives rushed feature
• 3:16
  launches and creates a culture where dissent is punished.
• 3:20
  Over the summer, Grok, which is XA is chatbot generated pro
• 3:24
  Hitler content after Musk ordered it to be less woke.
• 3:28
  How that change led to public criticism and more internal
• 3:32
  resignations. People don't want to be
• 3:34
  associated with that. That's disgusting.
• 3:37
  So I would leave too. I don't want any part of that.
• 3:40
  Nobody wants any part of that. And if you do, you're a loser.
• 3:44
  Now saying that working there makes you a loser, but having
• 3:48
  anything to do with pro Hitler content makes you a loser.
• 3:52
  That's all I'm saying. Let me know in the comments of
• 3:55
  whatever podcast platform you're on if you think that makes you a
• 3:58
  loser to be associated with a company.
• 4:02
  Even if it was a flaw and it was just a programming error, you
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  don't want any part of that, right?
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  I wouldn't want my family. I wouldn't want anybody involved
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  with me to have any part of that.
• 4:14
  It's not the right thing. Now there's also politics here.
• 4:20
  They play a role in attrition. Musk's public support for the
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  president, Donald Trump and far right provocateurs has made
• 4:29
  internal conversations difficult for some employees.
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  Several said they didn't want to keep defending Musk to their
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  families. A veteran of the company who
• 4:38
  recently left said every team meeting now carries political
• 4:41
  weight. And those who feel morally
• 4:42
  conflicted about Musk's behavior are already just trying to find
• 4:46
  another job. They're halfway out the door.
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  They're waiting for that opportunity.
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  Tesla has also lost institutional knowledge in areas
• 4:54
  Musk once prioritize. The lead on Optimus AI Ashish
• 4:59
  Kumar left for Meta. Milan Kovac, who oversaw the
• 5:04
  overall humanoid robot program, also left.
• 5:08
  Vineet Matad, who spent 18 years in Tesla's battery group, left
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  in April. Those aren't roles that can be
• 5:14
  filled quickly though. Those are roles that you need to
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  be a senior in, you need to have knowledge and there's just a few
• 5:22
  people that can do those things. Many of the people walking out
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  helped shape the long term technology road map that Musk is
• 5:28
  still trying to execute now. Others, like Amid AFSAR, weren't
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  just employees, they were close confidants.
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  Had Musk's ear ran sales and operations in North America was
• 5:42
  also described as Musk's executioner.
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  His exit in June, followed by his deputy Troy Jones, marked
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  the end of a 15 year stretch of operational continuity.
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  Other exits came after Tesla's sales numbers fell and many
• 6:00
  inside blame Musk for pushing away liberal customers with this
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  political posts. The chaos isn't limited to Tesla
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  and XAI. Engineers X has seen an entire
• 6:11
  layer of product and comms leadership vanish.
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  Linda Yaccarino resigned the CEO.
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  She resigned in July after growing tired of being
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  sidelined. The Co founder of XAI quit a
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  month later to start an AI safety nonprofit.
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  What happened there to make that happen?
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  Product heads Hefei Wang and Patrick Tribert.
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  I'm sorry about the names. I'm probably butchering them.
• 6:37
  I don't know exactly who these people are, how to pronounce
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  their names. So, you know, they left as well.
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  Engineering leaders were also poached by open AI.
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  So loyal members matter to Musk more than the structure of the
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  company. He's going to find other people
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  to fill those roles. And according to former
• 6:59
  executive Musk's, he makes all the critical calls and surrounds
• 7:03
  himself with people willing to just go along with it.
• 7:07
  You know, if he makes a decision, all right, let's do
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  it. That sounds like a great idea.
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  Mr. Musk 1 described the environment as rigid with no
• 7:14
  tolerance for dissent. He's the boss, he's the alpha.
• 7:18
  Anyone who doesn't treat him that way finds a way to get
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  deleted now. Despite the turnover though,
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  Musk keeps going on. He recently installed a hologram
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  of Annie and which is a flirtatious AI character whose
• 7:32
  in app behavior sparked criticism in the lobby of XAIS
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  office. Musk plans to keep building his
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  vision of the future, even if many of the people who helped
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  him get this far and make his multiple billions of dollars are
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  no longer around to see it through.
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  They made their paydays too, of course he made a lot more than
• 7:51
  they did. Robert Denham, who is the chair
• 7:55
  of Tesla, said people focus too much on exits and not enough on
• 7:59
  new hires, but the pace and pattern of these departures
• 8:02
  suggests something deeper than normal attrition.
• 8:06
  They're not isolated. Things have changed.
• 8:08
  The warnings from inside the machine that the machine may be
• 8:12
  changing. Elon Musk is still in control
• 8:15
  there, but the foundation is definitely shaking.
• 8:18
  The bones are getting rattled. We'll have all the information
• 8:21
  about what's going on in his companies, so stay tuned and
• 8:25
  subscribe to the show. Hey, thank you so much for
• 8:28
  listening today. I really do appreciate your
• 8:30
  support. If you could take a second and
• 8:32
  hit the subscribe or the follow button on whatever podcast
• 8:35
  platform that you're listening on right now, I greatly
• 8:38
  appreciate it. It helps out the show
• 8:39
  tremendously and you'll never miss an episode.
• 8:42
  And each episode is about 10 minutes or less to get you
• 8:45
  caught up quickly. And please, if you want to
• 8:48
  support the show even more, go to patreon.com/stagezero and
• 8:54
  please take care of yourselves and each other and I'll see you
• 8:57
  tomorrow.