Another Iceberg, Right Ahead 231
attached to his or her individual version. When everyone
found out what Elon had tried to do, the situation wors-
ened. “Life for the employees at Tesla Motors has got more
depressing over the last few months,” an employee said.
“Elon Musk is now spying on everyone.”^428
Tesla decided to release Model S earlier than expected,
and they had a big release party. But Elon was skeptical.
“The only sad story is that I’m not looking forward to the
party tonight,” he said. “I’m not trying to do this company
because I think this is the easiest way to make a buck –
I’d be bloody insane. There are many other things I’d do
if maximizing my wealth was my objective. The reality is,
it’s not fun running a car company and a rocket company
at the same time. The amount of work I have is way past
the fun point.”^223
Tesla applied for a loan guarantee from the Department
Of Energy [DOE]. This decision would be criticized – not
least when Elon took his private jet to Washington. This
was after the public had criticized the executives from
the Big Three automakers when they took the private jet
to Washington to negotiate a bailout. “Much has been
written about my use of a ‘private’ jet, as though this is
a personal indulgence or shows that I have some kind of
Marie Antionette approach to living expenses,” Elon said.
“Last year, I did roughly 200 business trips and spent 500
hours in the air, not counting airport time. In contrast, you
could count the number of truly personal trips I did on one
hand. If I didn’t need the plane to get my jobs done running
SpaceX and Tesla simultaneously, it would have been sold