'Doing the right thing': don't be a jerk, accept apologies
- From:
- Elon Musk
- Date:
- May 31, 2017
- To:
- All Tesla employees
- Subject:
- Doing the right thing
Partial text. Only these passages were published; [...] marks a gap.
Part of not being a huge jerk is considering how someone might feel who is part of an historically less represented group. This doesn't mean there is a different standard of performance or that you can't give critical feedback. You should -- doing anything else would be an insult to the hard work it took to get there -- but don't ever intentionally allow someone to feel excluded, uncomfortable or unfairly treated. Sometimes these things happen unintentionally, in which case you should apologize.
In fairness, if someone is a jerk to you, but sincerely apologies, it is important to be thick-skinned and accept that apology. If you are part of a less represented group, you don't get a free pass on being a jerk yourself. We have had a few cases at Tesla where someone in a less represented group was actually given a job or promoted over more qualified highly represented candidates and then decided to sue Tesla for millions of dollars because they felt they weren't promoted enough. That obviously is not cool.