Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future

Elon will likely keep on writing e-mails
and working during the initial part of the interview and not speak much. Don’t panic. That’s normal.
Eventually, he will turn around in his chair to face you. Even then, though, he might not make actual
eye contact with you or fully acknowledge your presence. Don’t panic. That’s normal. In due course, he
will speak to you.
From that point, the tales of engineers who have interviewed with Musk run the gamut
from torturous experiences to the sublime. He might ask one question or he might ask several. You can be
sure, though, that he will roll out the Riddle: “You’re standing on the surface of the Earth. You walk one
mile south, one mile west, and one mile north. You end up exactly where you started. Where are you?”
One answer to that is the North Pole, and most of the engineers get it right away. That’s when Musk will
follow with “Where else could you be?” The other answer is somewhere close to the South Pole where,
if you walk one mile south, the circumference of the Earth becomes one mile. Fewer engineers get this
answer, and Musk will happily walk them through that riddle and others and cite any relevant equations
during his explanations. He tends to care less about whether or not the person gets the answer than about
how they describe the problem and their approach to solving it.
When speaking to potential recruits, Singh tried to energize them and be up front about the demands of
SpaceX and of Musk at the same time. “The recruiting pitch was SpaceX is special forces,” she said. “If
you want as hard as it gets, then great. If not, then you shouldn’t come here.” Once at SpaceX, the new
employees found out very quickly if they were indeed up for the challenge. Many of them would quit

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within the first few months because of the ninety-plus-hour workweeks. Others quit because they could
not handle just how direct Musk and the other executives were during meetings. “Elon doesn’t know about
you and he hasn’t thought through whether or not something is going to hurt your feelings,” Singh said. “He
just knows what the fuck he wants done. People who did not normalize to his communication style did not
do well.”
There’s an impression that SpaceX suffers from incredibly high turnover, and the company has without
question churned through a fair number of bodies. Many of the key executives who helped start the
company, however, have hung on for a decade or more. Among the rank-and-file engineers, most people
stay on for at least five years to have their stock options vest and to see their projects through. This is
typical behavior for any technology company. SpaceX and Musk also seem to inspire an unusual level of
loyalty. Musk has managed to conjure up that Steve Jobs–like zeal among his troops. “His vision is so
clear,” Singh said. “He almost hypnotizes you. He gives you the crazy eye, and it’s like, yes, we can get to
Mars.” Take that a bit further and you arrive at a pleasure-pain, sadomasochistic vibe that comes with
working for Musk. Numerous people interviewed for this book decried the work hours, Musk’s blunt
style, and his sometimes ludicrous expectations. Yet almost every person—even those who had been fired
—still worshipped Musk and talked about him in terms usually reserved for superheroes or deities.
SpaceX’s original headquarters in El Segundo were not quite up to the company’s desired image as a
place where the cool kids want to work. This is not a problem for SpaceX’s new facility in Hawthorne.
The building’s address is 1 Rocket Road, and it has the Hawthorne Municipal Airport and several tooling
and manufacturing companies as neighbors. While the SpaceX building resembles the others in size and
shape, its all-white color makes it the obvious outlier. The structure looks like a gargantuan, rectangular
glacier that’s been planted in the midst of a particularly soulless portion of Los Angeles County’s sprawl.
Visitors to SpaceX have to walk past a security guard and through a small executive parking lot where
Musk parks his black Model S, which flanks the building’s entryway. The front doors are reflective and
hide what’s on the inside, which is more white. There are white walls in the foyer, a funky white table in
the waiting area, and a white check-in desk with a pair of orchids sitting in white pots. After going
through the registration process, guests are given a name badge and led into the main SpaceX office
space. Musk’s cubicle—a supersize unit—sits to the right where he has a couple of celebratory