Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

As we all know, Elon Musk (Elon Musk) is the CEO of Tesla. But he is also CEO of SpaceX, a space exploration technology company, and heads tunnel digging company The Boring Company and brain-computer interface company Neuralink. With the completion of the $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, Musk became the CEO of the social media platform. Analysts say it will be difficult for Musk, which is already severely overloaded, to take care of all of these companies.

Musk has too much to do at the moment. In the week after buying Twitter for $44 billion, he fired not only Twitter's senior management, but also thousands of employees and declared himself Twitter CEO and sole director. At the same time, Musk also used tweets and emojis to openly discuss a questionable business plan: charge users $8 a month to obtain "Blue V" certification.

All this, however, is just a "new sideline" for Mr Musk. As the richest man in the world, Musk is probably the busiest man. In addition to reshaping Twitter, he is also the CEO of electric carmaker Tesla, rocket maker SpaceX, tunnel digger The Boring Company and brain-computer interface company Neuralink.

How will he manage and lead all these complex projects at the same time? His performance may have been uneven before. In the future, it may become more uneven. "one CEO cannot manage four or five companies as effectively," says David Yoffie, a professor at Harvard Business School. "that shouldn't be what we expect." While Musk's other companies face serious challenges, serving as a new CEO in a company in an unfamiliar industry (Twitter) will only make it more difficult to manage them.

Tesla is busy enough now is not a good time for Musk to distract himself from Tesla, Musk's most valuable company. Under Musk's management, Tesla has made great progress in battery technology, production and self-driving, and car sales have increased rapidly. In the third quarter of this year, Tesla delivered 343000 electric vehicles worldwide, an impressive year-on-year increase of more than 1 amp 3. But at the same time, Tesla is also under pressure from other automakers, who are also actively producing competitive electric vehicles.

In the next few years, more than a dozen new electric vehicles from different brands will be unveiled in the United States alone. In June, Bank of America Bank Of America Merrill Lynch said in a report that Tesla's share of the electric vehicle market could fall to 11 per cent by 2025, down from more than 70 per cent in 2021.

In addition, Tesla also faces a number of lawsuits, mainly related to the Autopilot autopilot system accident. It was reported last month that the US Department of Justice had also launched a criminal investigation into Tesla's fully autopilot software package. Although it is called "fully autopilot", it does not have such ability in fact.

Tesla's share price has fallen sharply in recent months since Mr Musk announced plans to buy Twitter. 'it could be a sign that investors are worried about Musk's workload and lack of skills, 'said Yofi, a professor at Harvard Business School. When Tesla encountered a production crunch in 2018, Musk quickly summoned workers to work overtime, and he himself slept at the factory for a few nights. But in the future, he may not have time to participate in similar crises.

"basically, Musk is a micro-manager," Yofi said. if he had acquired Twitter at that time, it would have been impossible to give Tesla any more attention. "

SpaceX and The Boring face many challenges in SpaceX, where Musk is both CEO and chief designer. Not only have a busy schedule, but also face some complex management challenges. A NASA official said last week that SpaceX's "Starship" could make its maiden voyage as early as December.

Last year, SpaceX signed a $3 billion contract with NASA. NASA will use SpaceX's heavy rocket Starship to send a man to the moon around 2025. But the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in June that SpaceX needed to take 75 mitigation measures for "starships" to reduce the impact on the environment. At present, FAA has not approved the launch of the "starship".

Compared with Tesla and SpaceX, Musk's other two companies, The Boring Company and Neuralink, are younger. The former was founded in 2016 and has completed prototype tunnels in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, but plans to connect New York to Washington, D.C., downtown Chicago and the airport, as well as downtown Los Angeles and Dodger Stadium Stadium, have stalled.

In 2017, Mr Musk said in an interview that The Boring Company took up 2 to 3 per cent of his time. At first, Musk wanted to build a "super high-speed rail" (hyperloop), which uses pressurized pipes and maglev technology to allow trains to pass at high speed. But now he has given up the idea and dismantled a test tunnel in Los Angeles, turning it into a parking lot.

Neuralink was also founded in 2016, is a brain-computer interface company, engaged in neurotechnology, brain-computer interface and other cutting-edge technology research. Musk has previously said he plans to get regulatory approval for brain chips by 2020 and start human trials in 2022, but progress has clearly lagged behind.

In addition, for Musk, Neuralink represents more than just business interests. It was also reported in July that Musk gave birth to twins with Shivon Zilis, a senior executive at the company, in November 2021.

Andy Wu, an assistant professor at Harvard, believes that Mr Musk's companies share a common model of solving complex problems through huge capital investments, bold bets and persuading employees and investors of a bigger mission.

But this acquisition of Twitter does not fit this model yet. Andy Wu said he was impressed by Musk's rapid restructuring of Twitter, but he had not yet seen Musk's clear statement on Twitter's mission.

Musk's acquisition of Twitter did not offer a clear and inspiring engineering goal, as Tesla and SpaceX did. On the contrary, his apparent focus on freedom of expression seems at odds with the challenges of running the social media company safely and profitably. In recent days, Mr Musk seems to have abandoned his previous proposal to relax censorship of Twitter content, frustrating some of his supporters.

Distinguish between personal life and business skills of course, says Andy Wu, it is important that we distinguish our dislike or fanaticism for Musk's political or personal life from the assessment of his business skills. Andy Wu said that holding multiple CEO positions at the same time is not without precedent, and many investors are playing an active role in a number of startups. A striking example is that Steve Jobs (Steve Jobs) worked at both Pixar and Next Computing after he was fired from Apple and did very creative things at both companies.

Of course, Andy Wu also pointed out that, by contrast, the management of Tesla and SpaceX may be much more complex and challenging. In any case, one of Musk's talents has been driving his careers without conflict. That is to actively use Twitter as a social platform, including interacting with users, hyping investors, and attacking critics.

Yofi said that Tesla and his share price benefited a lot from Musk's series of actions on Twitter. Now, taking control of the platform that once helped him improve his personal brand will only make his voice louder. "he got a staggering amount of free PR," Yofi said. "

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