WIRED CLASSICS: 'Sometimes Musk would terminate people; other times he would simply intimidate them. One manager had a name for these outbursts—Elon’s rage firings—and had forbidden subordinates from walking too close to Musk’s desk.'
For weeks, some Tesla executives had wagered among themselves how many people would preorder a Model 3. Some optimists guessed more than 50,000, which would be close to an industry record. When Musk arrived in Century City, though, he saw something amazing. Nearly 2,000 people were standing in a line that wrapped around the building and into the parking lot. Musk began walking in the crowd, slapping hands while his bodyguard occasionally yelled “no selfies, just high-fives.
Field was known to be methodical and disciplined. He had received degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and had helped build automobiles at Ford Motor Company. He came to Tesla in 2013 after working at Apple. Leaving Apple “was the hardest career decision I’ve made,” Field said in a 2015 interview. “But it came down to the mission. It felt like a convergence of everything I had done in my career.