Musk is known for his micromanagement leadership style (which he has jokingly referred to as nanomanagement), and hiring is no different. In the early years of building SpaceX, he interviewed the first few thousand employees, before he no longer had enough time, he said. 

Musk now relies on his staff to find the “wow” factor and asks for bullet points on “evidence of exceptional ability,” he told Stripe cofounder John Collison and tech podcaster Dwarkesh Patel during a joint episode of their podcasts.

“Generally, what I tell people—I tell myself, I guess, aspirationally—is, don’t look at the résumé,” he said. “Just believe your interaction. The résumé may seem very impressive…but if the conversation after 20 minutes is not ‘Wow,’ you should believe the conversation, not the paper.” 

That approach paid off, and Musk added that Tesla’s senior leadership now has an average tenure of 10 to 12 years. But there was a time earlier, during a more rapid-growth phase, when executive positions changed more frequently.

He recalled a period when companies like Apple were “carpet bombing” Tesla’s leaders and engineers with recruiting calls. In 2018, Apple hired 46 former Tesla employees for its now-shuttered electric car project and other roles, according to CNBC. 

He said that at the time there was an idea that Tesla employees had “pixie dust,” or the quality to make a business successful because of their background with the company. Apple offered employees twice as much as Tesla was paying them, Musk said, explaining that poaching employees is easy in Silicon Valley because people typically don’t have to relocate or change their lifestyles when they move between companies. 

Musk, who has 200,000 employees across his five companies, admits to making some personnel mistakes. 

“I’ve fallen prey to the pixie dust thing as well, where it’s like, ‘Oh, we’ll hire someone from Google or Apple, and they’ll be immediately successful,’” he said.

But strong credentials and an impressive work history don’t tell the whole story, he added. Musk also puts value in a candidate’s talent, drive, and trustworthiness.

“I think goodness of heart is important,” he said. “I underweighted that at one point. So, are they a good person? Trustworthy? Smart and talented and hardworking?” 

Personnel changes at Musk’s companies

More recently, Musk’s companies have faced major executive losses as some employees left to build startups or take breaks, while others burned out or soured on his politics, strategic decisions, and recent layoffs.

Tesla’s chief information officer along with high-ranking members of the company’s public affairs arm and U.S. battery and powertrain operations left the company in recent years, the Financial Times reported. 

And Mike Liberatore, chief financial officer at Musk’s xAI startup, left for OpenAI after three months, writing on LinkedIn, “102 days — 7 days per week in the office; 120+ hours per week; Wild ride to say the least.”

Employees told FT that Musk has put more pressure on xAI employees, which they believe stems from his competition and personal rivalry with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

In August, Musk, an early investor in the company, filed an antitrust lawsuit against OpenAI and Apple for allegedly trying to limit AI competition. OpenAI has accused Musk of harassment and attempting to slow the company’s progress.