Elon Musk’s Tesla hype machine breaks down

For years, Elon Musk paid zero dollars for traditional advertising while almost singlehandedly keeping Tesla — and himself — front and center. With a never-ending stream of tweets, television and podcast appearances and livestreamed product events, the electric-vehicle maker and its billionaire CEO dominated news cycles and occasionally went viral.

Musk was a veritable hype machine, and his knack for breaking through meant that when Tesla managed to execute, its valuation soared to a stratosphere no automaker had ever come close to reaching. READ MORE

Cigars and Cry Rooms: Meet Elon Musk’s New ‘Cutthroat’ Twitter VP

Before Elon Musk made her one of his most powerful lieutenants at Twitter, Ella Irwin spent four years at Amazon, where her intensity inspired both respect and terror. The pressure was ceaseless; her emails landed at all hours. “She made me cry my first week,” a former employee told The Daily Beast. One space in the office became known as the “cry room.”

It wasn’t all on Irwin. Under Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s culture was notoriously brutal. But her personality seemed like an ideal fit. READ MORE