Earn a salary somehow.
King of Comedy
Elon Musk loves a good joke, and since he’s the richest man in the world and the president of several well-known companies, it’s only natural that those around him should love a good joke too.
That probably won’t be a source of friction at Musk’s longstanding businesses, such as SpaceX and Tesla, which he built and which have earned him a loyal following accustomed to his shenanigans.
But as revealed in “Character Limit,” a new book about the billionaire’s disastrous takeover of Twitter, New York Times reporters Ryan Mack and Kate Conger describe how employees at the social media site had to quickly learn that Musk “loved to be praised,” so all of them had to be prepared to laugh at his jokes or risk the same fate as many of their former colleagues who lost their jobs after Musk’s rise.
Some of his attempts at humor were more successful than others. Mack and Conger write about a particularly awkward exchange that occurred after Twitter executives were summoned to meet Musk for the first time.
When Musk learned that the executive had previously worked at Google, he began talking about how he was upset with the tech giant’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, for not equipping Android phones with antennas to connect to SpaceX’s Starlink internet service.
Musk then digressed, revealing that he had a friend who worked on Google’s search products who said the company was skirting antitrust laws by deliberately keeping its search engine market share below 70%.
“You get it?” Musk said with a grin. “Sixty-nine percent?” He looked around the room, then chimed in, hoping for an amusing response. “Sixty-nine percent!”
A change of scenery
This anecdote sounds like something out of a movie gag, too good to be true, but we’re talking about a guy who stumbled into headquarters with a kitchen sink, announced his intention to buy Twitter, and offered $1 billion to rename Wikipedia “Dickipedia.”
It’s unclear how well-liked he is among rank-and-file employees at the moment, but Mack and Conger say his personal team of sycophants have tried to appease their superiors by changing some of the décor to reflect his sense of humor.
“While in the office, near his favorite conference room on the 10th floor, a ‘galerie de meme,’ or meme gallery, was set up containing framed printouts of the billionaire’s favorite childish internet jokes,” the authors write.
His team also replaced some of the winners on the site’s Wall of Fame for Best Tweets with tweets from Musk himself, including a joke about buying Coca-Cola to put real cocaine back into drinks.
Near the common area, someone had created a photo collage themed on one of Mr Musk’s obsessive ideals: freedom of speech. A picture of Mr Musk carrying a sink into Twitter’s headquarters is displayed next to historical documents such as the U.S. Constitution and John Milton’s “Areopagitica.”
Even though the site continues to lose advertising funding and has lost all its employees, it’s reassuring to hear Musk and his entourage maintain their usual upbeat attitude.
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