The Electric: Thinking the Unthinkable—Tesla Without Elon Musk

For months after Elon Musk’s 2022 acquisition of Twitter, investors voiced increasing concerns about his capacity to juggle the leadership of both the social media platform and Tesla, the electric vehicle manufacturer where he is CEO. So in March 2023, Musk organized a live demonstration of why he could effectively run both companies: At Tesla’s Austin, Texas, gigafactory, Musk stood in front of 16 lieutenants, most of them dressed, like him, in black T-shirts. For the next three hours, the executives—most of them previously little known outside the company—stood, one by one, and described the robotics, cell making, artificial intelligence and manufacturing projects for which they were responsible. The point was clear: Tesla was more than Musk; he had delegated responsibility to a thick bench of executives.

Initially, the event had the opposite effect from what Musk intended—Tesla’s share price dropped 6% in after-hours trading, though it recovered later in the year. But watching the event on his computer from his New York office, Morningstar analyst Seth Goldstein had a different reaction entirely—that the company really didn’t need Musk. “I saw really how deep the management team is and how everyone seems to be on the same page and working towards the same goal within their different respective divisions,” Goldstein said. “And so it [seemed] to me that the strategy wouldn’t change too much” if Musk stepped down as CEO.