In an anonymous interview with Fortune, a member of the X (formerly Twitter) recruitment team shared: “If you have been fired in the past, don’t waste your time applying to X“.
The person also added: “Elon Musk is a red flag for candidates who have been fired. This billionaire is also not concerned about the reason why the person was fired“.
In fact, according to Business Insider, billionaire Elon Musk is directly involved in recruiting potential employees for X, Tesla, and SpaceX companies. The second richest person in the world only looks at resumes and makes hiring decisions based on a few questions with yes or no answers.
The X recruiting team member also shared that their company’s hiring process is very different from other companies. The person emphasized: “The value to remember when applying to X is to talk about ‘shipping code’ instead of talking about a roadmap, creating a big feature instead of just changing button colors“.
Attractive salaries if hired by Elon Musk’s company
To make it through the interview process, applicants to X must be able to describe the special things they have done to elevate themselves. According to Fortune, for example, instead of saying they worked at Google, candidates should explain how they increased revenue in Google Ads using their own strategies. In addition, Elon Musk tends to hire engineers who have been working for 20 years and have accomplished incredible things. However, candidates also need to have basic skills and be able to talk about the recent toughest problems they have encountered.
After passing the interview round at X, applicants will become full-time employees with salaries ranging from $100,000 to $300,000 per year, equivalent to over 2.4 – 7.4 billion VND. According to a source who shared with Fortune: “Employees do not expect to meet Elon Musk. However, if they do, they should not try to create conflicts or make excuses. Also, do not call X company Twitter“.
In fact, despite the rigorous and demanding requirements of the recruitment process, thousands of candidates submitted applications to Elon Musk’s company in 2023. Many of them are fans of the billionaire Elon Musk.
Interestingly, not only X but also other companies under Elon Musk’s leadership have to go through similar things.
Earlier, in May 2023, billionaire Elon Musk stated that he wanted to personally review each person working at Tesla. However, this task is not easy to complete. Over the past 3 years, the average number of Tesla employees has increased by about 30,000 people each year. Therefore, according to Business Insider’s calculations, if Elon Musk wants to review each candidate, it will take him 21 consecutive working days.
According to information obtained by Business Insider, in an email sent to directors, billionaire Elon Musk wrote: “No one can join Tesla, even short-term cooperation, until they receive my approval via email“.
In addition, some Tesla employees have revealed that Elon Musk has intervened in the recruitment process. However, he has relaxed in recent years.
A person involved in the Tesla recruitment process shared: “The recruitment process is so meticulous that we can miss out on excellent candidates just because they have worked for someone else before receiving an offer from us“.
Elon Musk, the billionaire, has previously shared with the media that there were times when he slept in the factory and worked up to 120 hours per week (equivalent to 5 days without eating or sleeping). This partly shows how this famous billionaire has devoted his time to meticulous tasks, such as recruitment.
Aside from the Tesla electric vehicle company, the X social network, billionaire Elon Musk is also leading the Boring Company tunnel digging company, the Neuralink brain technology company, and the xAI startup.
Article reference: Fortune, Business Insider