Tesla CEO Elon Musk often forwards customer suggestions from X posts to his leadership team, according to a senior company executive. This approach bears a striking resemblance to the no-nonsense emails that former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was notorious for sending during his tenure.
What Happened: Rohan Patel, Tesla’s Vice President of Public Policy and Business Development, disclosed in an X post that Musk frequently shares valuable customer feedback by forwarding X posts directly to his team members.
“When I first joined Tesla I thought it was wild that our CEO/Technoking would action items from X by literally forwarding them, usually with a ? or ! as the subject line,” he said. “Now I think it's kind of crazy *not* to act on the best ideas(especially from our customers) with speed and seriousness.”
Similarities With Jeff Bezos: Musk’s approach closely mirrors a particular aspect of Bezos’ management style at Amazon. Bezos, known for his direct and no-frills communication, would forward customer complaints directly to the relevant executives responsible for resolution, Reuters reported in 2021, when he stepped down as CEO. These emails, devoid of pleasantries and containing only a question mark, were reported to have unsettled some Amazon managers.
Bezos occasionally employed question-mark emails as a method to manage the influx of customer messages he received, as per Reuters. This approach reportedly proved to be efficient for Bezos, who balanced oversight of multiple sectors, besides serving as a motivating factor for employees, instilling a sense of urgency and accountability.
Differences Between the Two: Unlike Bezos, who forwarded emails, Musk utilizes X (formerly Twitter) posts as a conduit for customer feedback. Musk’s active presence on X, where he often engages with customers, serves as a primary platform for Tesla’s public relations and communication efforts.
Additionally, Musk leverages X for recruitment purposes and to provide product-related support and advice directly to customers. Only last month, Musk addressed concerns about large door panel gaps on some Cybertrucks and clarified that the fix would only take a few minutes.
What They Think Of Each Other: The two billionaires often rival each other in wealth. As per Forbes’s real-time billionaires list, Bezos is now the second richest man in the world with a net worth of $202.8 billion, followed by Musk in the third position with $189.2 billion. Both the players have climbed up to the top spot now and then, beating the other.
The two also have rival space ventures. While Musk is the founder and CEO of SpaceX, Bezos is behind Blue Origin. Both companies are currently developing lunar landers to enable future exploration of the Moon.
In an interview with Lex Fridman in December, Bezos applauded Musk as a “very capable leader” and added that he loves the idea of hanging out with the SpaceX CEO.
In November, Musk said at a New York Times DealBook Summit that he agreed with many of Bezos’ motivations and added that he is glad Bezos chose to invest in rockets.
"Let me put it this way, if there was a button I could press that would delete Blue Origin, I wouldn't press it," Musk then said.
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