The beginning of 2014 was the time when one of Elon Musk’s most trusted people – his assistant Mary Beth Brown – decided to ask for a promotion. However, she hardly assumed that this would end her 12-year professional relationship with Musk. In his bestseller “Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future”, journalist and writer Ashley Vance tells this curious story.
Let’s move back to the United States in 2014. At the time, the assertive Brown had been working for Elon Musk for 12 years. She works really hard and is good at what she does. He works really hard, traveling between Los Angeles and Silicon Valley every week, often working late into the night and on weekends.
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He mainly deals with Musk’s planning in two companies – SpaceX and Tesla, manages public relations and often helps the billionaire make business decisions. It is considered a natural business continuation of Elon.
If Musk worked twenty hours, Brown worked that much too. Over the years, she brought Musk food, arranged his business meetings, planned time with his children, selected his clothes, communicated with the press, and literally “snatched” when necessary. Elon from a meeting to follow the schedule, “Vance wrote.
As a result, the assistant becomes the only bridge between Elon Musk and all his interests. She is undoubtedly an invaluable asset, a great employee, and often even a business advisor and business partner. It is even believed that he has made an outstanding contribution to the development of SpaceX, as he pays great attention to every detail and helps to balance the work processes in the office.
So, in early 2014, Brown decided it was time for a promotion. She goes to Musk with great hope and wants the dream promotion. In particular, she wants to be reappointed as part of the top executives of SpaceX.
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And do you know what Elon Musk said in response? He asks her to take a few weeks off to realize in her absence the value of the responsibilities she carries. Probably Musk wants to know if and how indispensable Brown is to him.
“I told her, ‘Look, I think you’re very valuable.’ Maybe this promotion you want is right. Please take a two-week leave and I’ll decide if that’s true or not, “Musk said, according to footnotes in Ashley’s book. So Mary Beth Brown took a two-week break, and Musk took over. .
Two weeks later, Brown returned to the office and, unexpectedly for her, Elon Musk told her that he no longer needed her services.
“When she came back, my conclusion was that the professional relationship between us would no longer work. 12 years is a good experience for any profession. It will do a great job for someone else,” the businessman told his colleagues.
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However, this is a real shock for Brown, because in America it is not normal for a person to be fired because he wants a promotion.
In her book, Ashley writes that “this event struck people in SpaceX and Tesla like thunder from a clear sky and confirmed the thesis about the cruel egocentrism and lack of empathy in Elon Musk.” For his part, the billionaire claims to have offered Brown another job with the same pay as the previous one, but she refused and left the company voluntarily.
The main question here is why Musk is even inclined to part with his longtime assistant, who is doing everything for him in the right way. Is it about asking for more money? Or is it because of the “insight” of the richest man in the world that their relationship is no longer working? Or maybe it’s because Brown can’t understand Musk, even though he’s been working with him for 13 years?
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From the assistant’s point of view, it is obvious that she was confident in her contribution to the companies owned by Musk, therefore she wanted him to treat her as a top employee, even as an equal partner. For one reason or another, however, this is not the case. happens.
Elon Musk himself commented on the story, described in the book as “absolute nonsense”. His official version of what happened was that he didn’t promote his assistant, mostly because he thought he needed several different professionals instead of one for the new job she was looking for.
The billionaire added that after she refused to stay at work with the same salary as before, she received a net salary for 52 weeks, a recommendation, as well as shares from his companies in gratitude for her great contribution. Journalist Ashley Vance says none of this is true. The assistant did not comment.
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