The actual error was me trying to have my cake and eat it too: I just wanted to work on the technology and the product. I thought someone else could be the CEO and run the business, because I just like working on technology, product, and design. I was also doing SpaceX at the time, and our rockets were exploding.
I had always wanted to build an electric car company. I thought this is how I could have my cake and eat it too. That was a huge mistake and fundamentally a moral error. When I joined, there were no employees. There was no intellectual property. There was no prototype, no nothing.498
I had provided about 95 percent of the money for Tesla, so I could become CEO anytime I wanted. And in the end, I had to frickin’ become CEO of Tesla. I didn’t want to be, but it was either that or the company was going to die.499
I never wanted to be a CEO, but I learned you could not truly be the chief technology or product officer unless you were the CEO.500
Being CEO of two startups at the same time was not appealing. It shouldn’t be appealing, by the way, for anyone thinking it was a good idea. It was a terrible idea.501
If you’re a CEO of a company, the chore level is high, and if you don’t do your chores then the company goes to hell. Frankly, I hate doing chores—who doesn’t? There’s a whole bunch of personnel and legal issues: things I don’t find enjoyable to work on, but if I don’t work on them, the company suffers. The sheer volume of work is insane.502
The perception of me as a businessperson is fine, but my time is spent almost entirely with the engineering team. I’m a physics guy, an engineer. I’d prefer to be working on products. I do the business stuff because you have to do the business stuff. If you don’t do the business stuff, somebody else could do it for you and then you could be in trouble.503
I have a habit of biting off more than I can chew and just sitting there with chipmunk cheeks.504