Elon Musk is the main topic on social media and the tabloids in the recent period. He takes place in many things through his businesses, including various controversies. Recently, he had a confession about his romantic relationship with one of his employees, leading to fruition. Now, allegedly they share the parenthood on two children. With this, according to experts on the matter, Elon violates his own code of conduct.
Elon Musk became a father for the zillionth time, this time sharing his genetics with one of the executives in his Starlink company, Shivon Zillis. According to Business Insider, they welcomed twins last November. Zillis has a role of a director of operations in Starlink/Neuralink, a company founded by Musk back in 2016. However, this is not the first time that she is working with Elon. Previously she spent 2 years at Tesla as a project director.
After the news broke out, Tesla’s CEO and founder Elon Musk decides to take the opportunity to confess about it on Twitter and share a tweet. “Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis.” – Musk wrote and started a whirlwind of comments.
Amongst many people, Jeffrey Sonnenfield, the dean of leadership studies at Yale, becomes vocal about this and points out how wrong this situation is. There is still no precise information on when did this relationship start. Rumors state that it is a multiple years long relationship. It may be a several years long relationship. And according to Jeffrey, that would most certainly get in direct conflict with Tesla’s code of business ethics.
Elon Musk Has Violated Tesla’s Ethics Code – How Many Relationships With Different Employees Does He Have?
Tesla’s code of business ethics says that relationships between employees, subordinate employees, and executives, to be more precise, is a total no-go. Employees are asked to avoid these conflicts of interest as much as possible. And how can they do that if the main person there, the CEO, is ‘chasing’ employees around? In case of a such situation, the conduct instructs the employees to head to the human resources department and report the matter.
Many newsletters tried to get in contact with one, or the other of the two, however, until now, there is no official statement from Elon or Zillis. Furthermore, there is no information on whether the Human resources departments had information of this beforehand.
Some people, such as Julie Moore from Employment Practices Group take the matter to next level of judgment. She says that even if the relationship didn’t start since Zillis didn’t start working for Neuralink, again, it is in direct violation of Tesla’s code. All this is because the company’s CEO is a highly visible and highly popular person. According to her, this is solely a ‘poor judgment in management conduct.’
“I am betting that the board members are huddling with their inside counsel, outside employment attorneys, their PR people and they don’t want to rush to judgment.” – Moore says. “Admittedly, in court documents, he’s the father of two children. The mother was the executive at the company at the time. So do the rules apply to him? Can he act with impunity because of his wealth, his power, his status, his notoriety?”
Elon Musk is on the loose lately. His behavior is not on the level of a high-profile person as he is. This ‘hidden’ children scandal is not the only one involving him in the recent period. Two months ago, one of the most sounding names in Tech got involved in another sex scandal. Allegedly, he paid $250 000 to stop a flight attendant from spreading information that he sexually harassed her. However, this report got a dismissal from the billionaire, stating it is a ‘politically motivated hit piece’.
Furthermore, the concern that all of his employees share about his behavior, reaches so high that they send him an open letter. They condem his behavior and ask him to think about the effect that these controversies have on his company. This story is published by The Verge since through inside company sources they obtained the original letter.
This reckless behavior from the billionaire is prone to judgment from many employment practices experts. They say that such behavior can affect the professionalism in the company and furthermore bring the company morale down. According to them, all companies should have formal policies that demand strict following. And the people that are in high positions should present role models for their subordinates.
Sexual relationship stories and confessions are surfacing from many different spheres and businesses lately. The ‘Me Too’ movement adds fuel to this and brings to light many sexual incidents amongst high-profile people. McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook, Intel’s CEP Brian Krzanich, CNN’s CEO Jeffrey Zucker, and the list goes on. These are just some of the sounding names that are connected to sexual relationships with subordinates.
However, Elon seems resilient to such allegations and judgments. He did become a headline in many newsletters and tabloids over the past months. But, he still seems untouchable and irreplaceable in his companies. As the wealthiest person in the world, he most certainly needs to think his decisions through.
Charles Elson, an expert at the University of Delaware, says we’ll not witness company board action taken against the CEO.
“The board didn’t react to an SEC violation of a magnitude that resulted in a court order. It will be rather a surprise if that they did anything now.” – Elson says. “He is king and as the old joke goes, the king can do no wrong.”
