A new book has documented what the author claims to be Elon Musk's mercurial temper and recounts several episodes of rage that he flew into during stressful times as Tesla's CEO.
Reporter Tim Higgins adapted a section of his upcoming book Power Play: Tesla, Elon Musk and the Bet of the Century for the Wall Street Journal on Friday, describing the stressful period of September 2018.
At the time, Musk's job and the company's future was on the line, as Tesla raced to roll out the crucial Model 3 before the end of September, in order to record those sales for the quarter.
Musk had set the ambitious goal of delivering 100,000 Model 3s by the end of the quarter -- more cars than the company sold in the entire prior year -- and one anecdote recounts how he chewed out a manager who told him it was not realistic.
On a nightly conference call, a manager with years of experience overseeing supply chains for the Army National Guard told him that the company was on pace to deliver 80,000 cars for the quarter, and that his 100,000 goal was impossible.
Within days, Musk fired the manager, according to the book, telling other executives he was disappointed with her 'fundamental inability to perform.'
In the end, Tesla's deliveries reached 83,500 for the quarter, nearly exactly what the fired manager had predicted.
A new book has documented Elon Musk's mercurial temper and recounts several episodes of rage that he flew into during stressful times as Tesla's CEO
Musk has refuted many of the claims in the book, saying in a tweet: 'Higgins managed to make his book both false *and* boring.'
On another daily conference call described in the book, Musk reportedly took Las Vegas sales manager Cayle Hunter to task even as he announced scheduling a record 1,700 people to pick up their Model 3s in the coming days.
Musk ordered Hunter to double the number the next day, and threatened to fire him if he called a single customer, insisting that text messages were better.
Hunter panicked because the Las Vegas store did not have the hundreds of company cell phones needed to text thousands of customers, but pieced together a solution using software that allowed his team to text from their computers.
Just nine months into his job, with his wife and children only recently having relocated to join him in Las Vegas, Hunter was desperate at the thought of losing his job, and spurred his team into a frenzy of activity.
Often, they didn't even wait for a customer to respond to a text before putting them down for the assigned pickup time, warning buyers that they'd have to wait until the next quarter if they didn't make their designated appointment.
By the end of the day, Hunter's team had reached 5,000 appointments, and he fought back tears as he gathered them to thank them, not revealing that his job had been on the line.
The Tesla plant in Fremont, California is seen above. A new book makes surprising claims about Elon Musk, but he has panned it as 'false'
In another instance, the book claims that Musk flew into a rage when a manager put in notice that he was quitting the company.
Musk confronted the manager at the the Fremont delivery center, screaming profanities and berating the man.
'I don't want anyone here who is going to quit on me during a time as important as now,' Musk reportedly said.
Musk followed the manager into the parking lot, continuing the confrontation, according to the book.
The incident even resulted in a board investigation after rumors that Musk had physically shoved the man, though the board ultimately said there was no physical altercation, according to the book.
Another incident described in the book predates the pressure cooker weeks
