How to Blackmail Your Own Company for $24 Billion

• CEO of big EV company 🚗⚡
• Got “distracted” by politics to “fix” government 🙄
• Board freaked out — share price dipped 📉
• They begged me to come back
• Offered $24B in stock to “stay focused” 💰
• Me: Pretends to think about it 🤔
• Also me: 🏝️💃

Hey, if I can do it, so can you!

I’m the CEO of a Very Important Electric Vehicle Company™.
We make fast cars, slow trucks, and sometimes, flamethrowers — because synergy.

One day, I got “bored” of only running a trillion-dollar empire and decided,
“You know what this planet needs? Me… in politics.”

So I started going on long livestream rants about “fixing” government inefficiency.
I proposed bold reforms, like replacing all DMV lines with racetracks and making Congress wear matching jumpsuits “for brand consistency.”

Problem was… I accidentally rubbed the wrong billionaires the wrong way.
(Let’s just say the yacht industry really hates my proposal for “public yacht-sharing.”)

Suddenly, the board of my company got nervous.
Share price wobbled. Investors started emailing me at 3 a.m. with subject lines like “???”

Then, one fateful Tuesday, they invited me to a “casual lunch meeting.”
There was no lunch. Only spreadsheets.
Spreadsheets showing exactly how much money I was not making them by being distracted.

So they made me a “generous” offer:
— Return to the company full-time.
— Stop trying to single-handedly run the government.
— In exchange, they’d “reluctantly” give me a slightly motivating stock package worth… $24 billion.

Naturally, I acted like I needed time to “think about it” —
while secretly texting my accountant, “We did it. Book the island.”

So yes… I blackmailed my own company without even meaning to.
And the best part? They thanked me for it.

Moral of the story: Always keep a side-hobby… just in case your main job isn’t paying enough.

Elon Musk, by Walter Isaccson

For two years, Isaccson shadowed Musk - attending all of his meetings - even making sure to take the urinal next to him whenever Musk had to go.

When Musk was a kid, he had to attend Veldschul or Veldskul in South Africa where bullying was not forbidden. It was like the Spartans sending their boys out to survive in the woods. In his first camp, Musk lost 10 pounds. The next time, he figured that if he punched the bigger kid in the nose, at the start of the contact, that same kid, even if he got the food and gave Musk a sound thrashing, wouldn't trouble Musk again.

In school, Musk was politically incorrect to the point of calling another kid, who did have some sort of handicap (I don't remember what exactly) "stupid." The kid and his buddies later cornered Musk and gave his face and head such a beating that Musk was in the hospital a week. Upon returning home, he had to endure hours-long tirade from his Dad - "how could YOU be so stupid as to call THAT kid stupid. I'm not surprised you got your comeuppance!" Kimball, Musk's brother, only watching, felt the pain of this parental antipathy. Says Isaccson. And, to this day, Musk has issues with his vision arising from that violent incident.

The design process : https://modelthinkers.com/mental-model/musks-5-step-design-process