Elon Musk fires back at former employee who exposed Tesla billionaire's three 'groundrules' in every meeting

Companies like Tesla don't become the most valuable of their kind without a few ground rules in place, but one former employee of the electric car company has exposed the key restrictions that all workers had to abide by in meetings.

Elon Musk is notoriously a man with little free time on his hands – even if that does involve a lot of time spent gaming and posting on X – and it has even led to lawsuits from former employees after they claim their issues were ignored by leadership at Tesla.

Part of this is due to the sheer number of meetings that someone with his influence has to be in every single day, so you can understand why he'd want to both keep them brief and instil some form of regulation to prevent any wasted time.

Usually these things are kept under wraps, but one former Tesla employee has exposed the three key 'ground rules' that Musk made sure were in place during every meeting, and some of them might shock you.

The post itself was shared by Russel Varone, former director of powertrain manufacturing and general assembly at Tesla, as he worked in key roles at the car company for over three years until late 2017.

"More insights on Elon from my personal experience at Tesla," he wrote in a now-viral post on X. "Every meeting I had with [Elon] had a few simple ground rules. No power points. Only talk about what is wrong / broken / roadblock you need [Elon] to clear. Don't bring food. Keep it clear. Speak about action."

While those aren't too out of the ordinary, especially as powerpoints are the bane of most officer workers nationwide, people have taken particular interest in the rule involving food.

"Lol why no food," questions one user in the replies, with others suggesting that it's either too casual for meetings that should be serious, or that you shouldn't be in any meetings that are long enough for you to eat during.

Varone also revealed that this particular rule didn't apply to Musk himself, as "he would eat in mtgs but that's cause he was running 16 hrs of mtgs each day," adding that he "drank diet coke a lot."

Musk has fired back against these claims in the replies though, clarifying that "bringing food is fine if you haven't eaten," which adds a little bit of context to Varone's claims that Musk himself would eat during meetings.

The ex-Tesla director also clarifies that excessive or disruptive eating "wouldn't have flown" during meetings in reply to a post that imagined someone "eating tortilla chips and sucking soda through a straw."

Might just be best to keep to simple with a quiet and odorless sandwich, lest you draw attention to yourself.