Photo: Patrick Pleul/Pool Photo (AP)
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has the ability to control the conversation about him with a single tweet, even when the news is a drag on his treatment of employees. That’s why this week he managed to turn a story about having children by an employee at one of his companies into a story about his strange fixation on declining birth rates.
On Thursday, Insider published a report based on court documents that showed Musk slept with one of his top executives at Neuralink, Siobhan Zillis, who then gave birth to twins last November.
How did the CEO of big companies like Tesla and SpaceX respond? “The collapsing birth rate is the greatest danger civilization has ever faced.”
On Friday, Musk suddenly announced that he wants to give back to employees — well, at least all those current or expectant parents. He tweeted that he would increase childcare benefits at his companies, which include Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink and the Boring Company. Details will “hopefully” be announced next month.
The tweet was in response to a thread about his efforts to “help the underpopulation crisis.” The richest man in the world (you know, the one with enough money to change the world) doesn’t think climate change is the biggest threat to civilization, but instead said the “collapsing birth rate” is what which will really bring us down.
And sure enough, his tweet is short on detailing how the Musk Foundation will support these parents. Like several major companies, Tesla said it would pay the abortion travel expenses of out-of-state employees after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. This decision could make things difficult for him, since his Tesla center in Texas is right in the middle of one of the longest ongoing battles over access to abortion.
So his fixation on declining birth rates and the ultimate need to control the narrative seem to go hand in hand, and some accept it. Musk is 51 and Zillis is 36, though what may be more important here is the complex disparity in power between a woman, even a top executive, and her boss.
However, speculation about the interpersonal relationship between two elderly people will get no one anywhere. If only Musk believed the same. A SpaceX employee and flight attendant on one of Musk’s flights alleges that the CEO exposed his penis to her and offered her sex. Musk responded to these allegations with “If I was willing to engage in sexual harassment, it would hardly be the first time in my entire 30-year career that it has come to light.” He later tweeted: “Finally we can use Elongate as an infamous name.”
And probably more important is how it affects his companies. If Musk says he wants to support those below him, then he should absolutely help the parents. This is what every boss should do. Although he seems much more generous in helping his employees in other parts of their work. He has flatly rejected calls from employees for a work-from-home policy, and previous reports have shown that his companies have an unusually high turnover rate. SpaceX employees recently wrote an open letter to company executives saying they don’t like how Musk’s public behavior is affecting them and the rest of their company. How did Musk and his executives react? Space X launched several of them.
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