Kimbal Musk and Mr. Gracias, who left the Tesla board last year to serve as SpaceX director, declined to comment on this article.
Today, Mr. Musk oversees or is associated with at least a dozen companies, including public, private and holding companies such as Wyoming Steel, which he uses to manage real estate. His net worth is approximately $250 billion.
A closed circle
As Mr. Musk started more companies, he gathered employees that he could deploy in many of the activities.
One was Mary Beth Brown, who was hired in 2002 to essentially be Mr. Musk’s executive assistant. Known as MB, she quickly became a sort of chief of staff, handling media inquiries and some financial matters for SpaceX and Tesla, as well as helping manage Mr. Musk’s personal life, said Ashlee Vance, the author of “Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX and the quest for a fantastic future.”
That same year, Musk hired Gwynne Shotwell as SpaceX’s seventh employee. As president and chief operating officer of the rocket maker, Ms. Shotwell has overseen the company’s growth and has become one of Mr. Musk’s longest-lived employees.
At a 2018 conference, Ms. Shotwell explained how she led Mr. Musk.
“When Elon says something, pause for a moment and don’t blurt out, ‘Well, that’s impossible’ or, ‘We’re never going to do that. I don’t know how,’ she said. “So you zip it up and you think about it. And you find ways to make that happen.”
