The Devil Wears Burnt Hair cologne: 5 signs that Elon Musk is your toxic boss
The world's richest and most influential entrepreneurs often go down as some of the most "Horrible Bosses". But the highly controversial Elon Musk seems to have redefined the notion of a Horrible Boss with his eccentric views and working methods ever since he recently acquired the ownership of Twitter, serving as its CEO and sole Board member.
Whether Musk is a genius or a madman in his Twitter leadership, that only time can tell but for now he seems like quite a toxic employer to work under.
1. Fires people all of a sudden
While no job in the tech sector is certain, Musk's sudden ascension to power was marked by sudden firings, with over 50 per cent of Twitter employees losing their jobs. Musk and his diehard fans (including Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey) on LinkedIn can justify his actions as an efficient method to cut down costs and mitigate new losses, but the fact that the employees hardly got any warning to end their tenure at the blue bird company just makes working under him more uncertain.
2. Then goes on the rehire the fired employees!
In a string of unpredictable decisions, Twitter has decided to bring back dozens of its fired employees just two days after the mass firings took place. Is this some kind of a practical joke? Maybe, a test for Musk to check his employees' loyalties to his company (even after getting fired)? Who knows what the reasons behind this strange social experiment might be, but yes, this growing uncertainty and unpredictability make for more red flags around Musk as a boss.
3. Has a shady past with shady allegations
Every company must have an efficient HR to prevent cases of sexual misconduct. But what would the HR do if their own company's CEO has had a sketchy past? Yes, Elon Musk might have distracted the world with his perfume line, blue tick controversy, and tweet war with Stephen King, but let's not forget that just a few months ago, his name was popping up next to search words like "sexual harassment" and "sexual misconduct".
In 2018, an unnamed flight attendant accused Musk of indecently exposing himself during one flight and even asking her for an erotic massage in exchange for a horse, a claim that the now-Twitter CEO has continuously denied saying that he doesn't have flight attendants on his private plane. Regardless of Musk's denial, SpaceX did settle the matter with the accuser in 2018 with a payout of $250,000. Whether you believe the accuser or not, it is still risky working for a boss with such a bad rep.
4. Ready to ask money from anyone at any time
Despite being the richest man on the planet, the Twitter acquisition has been a hard financial decision for Misl. But in his attempts to make Twitter more egalitarian (or so he claims), he is ready to bargain and ask his own users to pay a monthly fee of $8, a decision that is upsetting several blue tick verified users, notably horror author Stephen King.
If tomorrow Musk asks his own office employees to pay for working under the blue bird, the employee shouldn't be surprised. It can double as a fee to loyally serve the Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator!
5. Probably smells like burnt hair!
When he's not busy engaging in Twitter comment wars or manufacturing rockets and smart cars, Musk is also a salesman of absurd limited edition products ranging from flamethrowers to tacky-looking colognes. While it is the absurdity that serves as the USP of his side projects, Burnt Hair seemed like a parody of itself.
Marketed as the scent to "get noticed as you walk through the airport", the perfume came at a price of $100 with an added delivery fee of $35. As the perfume wouldn't ship until next January, nobody knows what it exactly smells like. If it indeed smells like burnt hair, no Twitter employee would want to go near their "extra-musky" boss. Judging by Musk's antics, he might just force his employees to wear the scent, decreeing Burnt Hair to be the official "smell of Twitter". (cue the gags)