Elon Musk holds an emergency company-wide meeting at 10pm, more than 100,000 employees confused when receiving last-minute message

“This meeting is for investors, not us employees,” an anonymous employee told BI.

Business Insider (BI) reported that in the context of Tesla facing many challenges today, CEO Elon Musk suddenly held an emergency meeting for the entire company at 10 pm at the Austin headquarters – USA, confusing more than 100,000 employees because they were only notified at the last minute.

“Everything seemed a bit rushed, no one expected this meeting but everyone was just trying to catch up with the instructions,” a Tesla engineer told BI.

During the meeting, Elon Musk tried to reassure all employees, while showing that he was still paying attention to Tesla’s business situation and not neglecting it as rumored.

Some experts said that this was Elon Musk’s positive move towards Tesla, but many others said that this was another carelessness of this CEO when he did not prepare and spend time on the electric car company.

Chaos

According to BI, Tesla’s extraordinary meeting was announced at the last minute at 9:30 p.m. Eastern time in the US, but this caught many employees by surprise because of the short notice. Some employees only learned about the meeting through social media.

Elon Musk’s private plane only arrived at the Austin headquarters 2 hours before the CEO gave a presentation to the entire company.

Responding to BI, some anonymous Tesla employees said that this surprise meeting seemed to be just a “promotional stunt” by Elon Musk to investors that this CEO still cares about the company rather than wanting to reassure employees.

“This meeting is for investors, not us employees,” an anonymous employee told BI.

What’s more confusing is that Tesla posted a livestream link for all employees to join in a warm-up talk before Elon Musk officially spoke, but this link was taken down just 30 minutes before the meeting officially started.

The main reason is that this livestream link is full of meaningless whispers without any real conversation between employees.

Many Tesla employees were extremely confused because this link was posted on Twitter-X and then quickly taken down, making it impossible for them to access.

By the time Tesla posted the new link at 9:30 p.m. as scheduled, the meeting was silent for 30 minutes before it actually started at 9:58 a.m.

New York University professor Melissa Schilling said Elon Musk’s presentation at the meeting felt uncertain because it felt rushed from the start.

“The lack of preparation for a company-wide meeting is a dangerous thing for someone who plays a key role in the Tesla brand,” said Schilling.

According to Schilling, Elon Musk’s time running Tesla as a startup is over. Midnight meetings or surprise announcements with a startup are not unusual, but the world’s leading electric car company is no longer a startup.

The group has a total capitalization of $ 780 billion, down more than 50% from its peak of $ 1.5 trillion. Tesla shares have fallen 80% from their December 2024 high.

So the sudden action of calling an emergency meeting at 10 p.m. is more controversial than the image of a passionate entrepreneur.

The story of the world’s richest man sleeping on the Tesla factory floor when the company was in trouble or lying on the couch while struggling to rebuild Twitter into X is only positive when the business is going well.

On the contrary, according to Schilling, calling an emergency meeting at 10 p.m. only shows a lack of preparation and that Elon Musk is realizing too late the importance of Tesla compared to the billionaire’s other priorities.

The Steve Jobs Effect

On the other hand, Startups.com founder Wil Schroter said Elon Musk’s move was effective because speaking on livestream would have a more direct impact on workers than sending emails.

“There’s something different about being in front of people, even if it’s on Zoom, where they see you talking and expressing emotions,” Schroter said.

According to Schroter, this is Elon Musk’s way of showing that he still cares about Tesla instead of just sending a monotonous email.

Like Apple founder Steve Jobs, interactions between CEOs and workers can sometimes create high motivation in the business, even loyalty.

“There will only be one Elon Musk,” Schroter said when comparing him to Apple’s Steve Jobs.

Schroter said Elon Musk has achieved things that 99.9% of CEOs today are incapable of, similar to what Steve Jobs did for Apple.

“Most people who work for or follow Elon Musk believe in him, while most other founders or CEOs don’t have that kind of charisma,” Schroter said.

Back at the meeting, Elon Musk spent the first half of the time updating information about Tesla, from sales figures to project progress.

Then most of the remaining time was spent answering questions from employees.

“Look, I understand when a lot of people don’t want to buy our products, but we don’t need to burn them. That’s a little bit absurd. That’s crazy, stop being crazy,” Elon Musk said during the meeting.

“It’s hard for investors to imagine a future where suddenly 10 million electric cars become 5-10 times more useful. But I would say, ‘Just hold on to your Tesla stock,’” Elon Musk concluded.