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Why Elon Musk Fired Most of His Long-Term Employees Who Had Stuck by Him for Over 5 Years
He didn’t care how loyal you were
The epiphany
This is how it started. Elon Musk fired his long-term assistant who had worked for him for 12 years after she had asked for a raise.
Mary Beth had worked for present-day Tony Stark for twelve years. She was so close to him. To some point, she was considered an extension of Elon.
She committed to him entirely. She worked for long hours including weekends and late at night as she would travel back and forth from Los Angeles to Silicon Valley every week.
She used to manage Elon’s schedule between Tesla and SpaceX. She also assisted in public relations and making company decisions.
In essence, she was viewed as a devoted personal assistant. She would bring him food, manage his business appointments, plan time with his kids, cater for his clothes, handle the press, and when needed pulled him out of meetings so that he can stay on schedule.
She came out as the link between Musk and his personal interest creating a real-life scenario of Tony Stark and Pepper Potts. This made her an invaluable asset to the company.
Mary Beth knew her worth and she thought it was time to ask for a raise. So she approached Elon with her request.
This is what Musk told her, “Look, I think you’re very valuable. Maybe that compensation is right. You need to take two weeks’ vacation, and I’m going to assess whether that’s true or not,”—Ashlee’s Vance footnotes.
What Elon wanted to know is whether Mary Beth was indispensable, so he gave her a two weeks vacation to assess how things would run in her absence.
After two weeks Musk had made a discovery. He had known he can work comfortably without Beth’s assistance. So he fired her from her role.
He however offered her a different position within the company with the same salary. Beth dropped the offer and left.
The experience triggered Musk's thoughts on the number of employees he has that he doesn’t need.
