Elon Musk says walking out of long meetings and hanging up on boring calls is how to get ahead in business

Elon Musk believes the way to get ahead in business is to walk out of meetings if they go on for too long.

The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX has also advised workers to hang up on people once they believe the call is not “adding value”.

In a leaked email to his employees, he said, “excessive meetings are the blight of big companies and almost always get worse over time”.

The memo, obtained by Electrek, was to update Tesla staff on the Model 3 production, which was halted for the second time this year on Tuesday.

But he used the email to remind his employees of how maximise their productivity at the office.

In quotes | Elon Musk

In it, he said: “Please get [rid] of all large meetings, unless you’re certain they are providing value to the whole audience, in which case keep them very short.

“Also get rid of frequent meetings, unless you are dealing with an extremely urgent matter. Meeting frequency should drop rapidly once the urgent matter is resolved.

“Walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you aren’t adding value. It is not rude to leave, it is rude to make someone stay and waste their time.”

Billionaire entrepreneur Mr Musk, 46, also told staff to avoid using acronyms or “nonsense words” at work.

He said: “In general, anything that requires an explanation inhibits communication. We don’t want people to have to memorize a glossary just to function at Tesla.”

History of Tesla

And the South African had a stark warning for his line managers.

“Communication should travel via the shortest path necessary to get the job done, not through the ‘chain of command’,” he said.  

“Any manager who attempts to enforce chain of command communication will soon find themselves working elsewhere.”