Elon Musk runs 3 companies - and his executive juggling act is the perfect example of how the modern CEO job is broken
What does Elon Musk do all day?
That may seem like a simple question: He works. Musk is the CEO of three companies: SpaceX, Tesla, and, of course, Twitter. He also is involved in numerous other projects including The Boring Company and Neuralink, both of which he founded, and until June he served on the board of directors for the media company Endeavor, which owns the Ultimate Fighting Championship. To balance all of these tasks, Musk claims that he is working 120 hours a week and that his grueling routine is: "Go to sleep, I wake up, work, go to sleep, work, do that seven days a week." But all of this prompts the question: What does he actually do all day?
It's clear based on multiple reports that Musk is doing something even if it is mostly tweeting random thoughts, hounding his reports for features that actively degrade the quality of Twitter's core product, or firing employees who criticize him. Less clear is how much value Musk actually adds to the companies he oversees he's even driven away other executives who were more directly managing his companies' end products. But like many CEOs, he's accumulated a huge fortune by juggling several companies and directorships at once. But with so many roles and no one to answer to, Musk could say he works 24 hours a day it would be nearly impossible to disprove him.
While Musk may be an extreme case, he's also the perfect example of the modern CEO: a chaotic blend of unproductive micromanagement and highly paid absenteeism. Being the "chief executive" is meant to be the highest position in the organization the person who is ultimately responsible for everything in the company and yet the modern executive is someone who deliberately takes on multiple roles, directorships, book deals, and speaking arrangements. As the executive of a boutique tech public-relations firm, I am tired of the chief hypocrisy officers who claim that people "aren't working hard enough" as they reap the benefits of multiple jobs and roles. Instead of seeing the role of a chief executive as one ultimately responsible for the successes and failures of a company, it has become a personality-driven stepping stone to elevate the brand and likeness of one well-paid individual.
What is a CEO supposed to do?
A great CEO is one who is able to stand for the company's values and execute "big picture" ideas, but also someone who actually contributes to the company on a meaningful level. The idea of a CEO first popped up in the early 1910s, and many of the first chief executives were directly involved in the nitty-gritty of their companies: pay bands, employee hours, and specific product processes. As companies got larger, the role of the CEO became a little more macro-oriented bigger strategic and deal-making calls rather than day-to-day operations but ultimately responsible (and held accountable) for the end result. CEOs continued to generally work their way up into the position and stay enmeshed in the culture, while keeping a broader eye across various levels of product and management. But by the 1970s and 1980s, a crop of "superstar" CEOs transformed the job again. Instead of having their value tied to direct performance of the company the quality of the products, the happiness of the employees, the value they created modern CEOs began to be defined only by their ability to keep the stock price afloat and investors happy. They became the public face of the firm, signed book deals, did interviews, and spent less time focusing on their company's product. Not coincidentally, this is also when CEO pay started to drastically diverge from that of the average employee.
But studies have shown that the growth of the CEO as a public face and detached manager rather than a deep part of the organization is actually a negative for the value of the company and it's not surprising given how far removed many CEOs have gotten from the purpose of their roles.
A good CEO does have a lot of roles they are a sales representative, a recruiter, a fundraiser, and a morale booster but they are all in service of the company's goals rather than their own pay package. They're able to balance hands-on management with clear delegation that makes subordinates confident the CEO understands the task and why the deputy in question is the right person to execute it. Their value is based on morale, customer satisfaction, funding, and execution, rather than their own status and income.
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