Over the past year, many top managers of Elon Musk's companies have resigned due to his political activism and high demands. This applies to both key employees of Tesla and the xAI artificial intelligence team, the Financial Times reports.
Tesla recently saw key members of its US sales team, battery and powertrain division, public relations, members of the Optmius robotics and artificial intelligence teams, and its CIO leave. A similar situation occurred at xAI, where the CFO and general counsel left within a week of each other.
The FT spoke to more than a dozen current and former employees of Musk's companies, which together employ more than 140,000 people. While many people left the companies on good terms to take a break or start their own startups, there were also many who left due to burnout or dissatisfaction with the billionaire's strategy and policies.
“The only constant in Elon’s world is how quickly he changes his deputies,” said one of the billionaire’s advisers. “Even the board jokes that there’s regular time and there’s ‘Tesla time.’ It’s a 24/7 campaign-style work ethic. It’s not for everyone.”
xAI’s general counsel Robert Keel, who left his position in August after 16 months at the company, posted an AI-generated video of the lawyer in a suit shouting as he shoveled molten coal. He captioned it, “I love my kids and I don’t see them enough.” The startup’s former CFO, Mike Liberatore, worked for Musk’s startup for three months before moving to OpenAI, citing the grueling work schedule in a LinkedIn post.
Senior employees said Musk's tensions escalated with the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022. Employees believe the billionaire's rivalry with OpenAI's Sam Altman is causing additional pressure on the entire staff.
"Elon is having problems with ChatGPT and is spending every minute trying to push Sam out of the business," one senior employee said recently.
Other reasons include Elon Musk's political activities, including his close ties to Donald Trump and his support for far-right provocateurs in the US and Europe. Some employees fear having difficult conversations with their families about Musk's polarizing views on everything from transgender rights to the recent murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
The situation has been made worse by Musk’s management of Tesla. After laying off 14,000 workers in April 2024 and canceling a $25,000 low-cost electric car project, many executives and managers have left the company. For example, Daniel Ho, who worked on the low-cost car, has now joined Waymo, which is developing self-driving taxis from Google.
The FT notes that most former employees of Musk’s companies are afraid to criticize him for fear of retaliation. The exception was Giorgio Balestrieri, who worked at Tesla for eight years and publicly stated that Musk had caused “enormous damage to Tesla’s mission and the health of democratic institutions.” Another former employee added anonymously that if a person feels their moral compass tells them to leave the billionaire’s company, that will not change.