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VW books Elon Musk to motivate managers

At an event for its 200 most important managers, the German carmaker Volkswagen presented a special surprise guest: Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla.

At Volkswagen, the largest car maker in Europe, Tesla was ignored or laughed off for a long time. When VW later also started to focus more on electric mobility, the group tried to market ‘Tesla killers’ with the electric Audi e-tron and the VW ID.3, but so far without convincing success.

Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess, who aspires to a leading role in electric cars, broke the trend by having Tesla founder Elon Musk speak as a special guest at a conference for 200 executives. Diess described Musk as “their strongest competitor.” Inviting Musk was also a clear statement that the group “needs a different mindset to tackle the new competitors.”

Musk talked about VW’s switch to electric cars, his management style and production problems in a video call. He also indicated that he believes that Volkswagen will succeed in its turn towards electric cars.

Successor

While traditional VW bosses have always reacted coolly to Tesla and Musk, there has been a special chemistry between Diess and Musk for years. This year it leaked that the then BMW manager Diess in 2015 almost became CEO of Tesla was, at a time when Musk wanted to pass the torch.

They do not imply that they get on well with each other. For example, in September Musk made a test drive with Volkswagen’s first electric model, the ID.3 – at a small airport near Hanover. Musk supported the Austrian previously on Twitter when he came under fire in the diesel scandal.

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