Photo: Patrick Pleul/Pool Photo (AP)
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has the ability to control the conversation about him with a single tweet, even if the message is a sticking point in how he treats employees. That’s why this week he managed to turn a story about having children with a subordinate at one of his companies into a story about his odd fixation on falling birth rates.
On Thursday, Insider released a report based on court documents showing that Musk had slept with one of his top managers at Neuralink, Shivon Zilis, who then gave birth to twins last November.
How did the CEO of companies as big as Tesla and SpaceX react? “A collapsing birth rate is by far the greatest danger facing civilization.”
On Friday, Musk suddenly announced that he wanted to give something back to the employees – at least to all the current or expectant parents. He tweeted that he would increase childcare benefits at his companies, including Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink and Boring Company. Details will “hopefully” be announced next month.
The tweet was a response to the thread about his efforts to “help the underpopulation crisis.” The richest man in the world (you know, the one who has enough money to actually make a difference in the world) doesn’t believe climate change is the biggest threat to civilization, saying instead that “a declining birthrate” really something will bring us down.
And of course, his tweet offers few details about how the Musk Foundation will support these parents. Like several major companies, Tesla has announced it will cover travel expenses for out-of-state abortions for employees after the Supreme Court struck down Roe V. Wade. That decision could make things difficult for him, since his Tesla hub in Texas is right in the middle of one of the longest-running battles over abortion access.
So his fixation on declining birth rates and an absolute need to control the narrative seem to go hand in hand, and some believe so. Musk is 51 and Zilis 36, although perhaps this is more about the complicated power imbalance between a woman, even a top executive, and her boss.
However, speculation about the interpersonal relationship between two adults does not get anyone anywhere. If only Musk believed the same. A SpaceX employee and flight attendant on one of Musk’s flights claimed the CEO showed her his penis and offered her sex. Musk responded to those allegations with, “If I were inclined to engage in sexual harassment, this probably isn’t the first time in my entire 30-year career that this has come to light.” He later tweeted, “Finally we can elongate use as a scandal name.”
And perhaps more importantly, how that affects its businesses. If Musk says he wants to support his subordinates, he should definitely help the parents. Every boss should do that. However, he appears to be much more sparing in helping his employees in other parts of their jobs. He has strictly refused calls from employees under a home office policy, and previous reports have shown his companies have an unusually high turnover rate. SpaceX employees recently wrote an open letter to company executives, saying they didn’t like how Musk’s public behavior resonated with them and the rest of their company. How did Musk and his executives react to this? Space X fired several of them.