Elon Musk has hit out at claims that he scolded a Tesla employee for missing a meeting in order to witness the birth of his child, after a quote from a book written about the Tesla CEO circulated online.
The quote, pulled from Ashlee Vance’s biography of the entrepreneur titled Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, claims that when Musk discovered that an employee had failed to attend a meeting as a result of watching the birth of his baby, he said: “That is no excuse. I am extremely disappointed. You need to figure out where your priorities are. We’re changing the world and changing history, and you either commit or you don’t.”
Responding to an article on Vox that detailed the alleged event, Musk took to Twitter, writing: “I have never written or said this. Ashlee’s book was not independently fact-checked. Should be taken w a grain of salt.”
He added: “It is total BS & hurtful to claim that I told a guy to miss his child’s birth just to attend a company meeting. I would never do that.” Musk also stated that he “strongly supports pregnancy leave.”
Also See: A Self-Driving Truck Has Been Cleared to Drive on US Roads
A more humorous quote lifted from the book claimed that Musk had allegedly compared himself to samurai when talking with an investor, with the billionaire reportedly saying: “My mentality is that of a samurai. I would rather commit seppuku than fail.” After the quotes began to do the rounds on the Internet, Musk tweeted: “I’ve never called myself a samurai,” which must surely rank among the oddest tweets ever posted by someone on Forbes’ Rich List.
Photos: Getty Images
