This week, in a classic Muskian publicity stunt, Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Tesla, announced that he no longer had a job title at the electric-car manufacturer.
He had deleted his honorifics from his Tesla bio page, where he previously had been listed as chairman, product architect, and CEO, he said in a tweet. “I’m now the Nothing of Tesla. Seems fine so far,” he wrote.
Of course it’s fine. Why would anything change? Musk cannot, with mere words or the absence of them, distance himself psychologically or literally from his position at the electric car maker. He cannot magically make himself a commoner in a kingdom of his own creation. Plus, as he discovered, corporations are legally required to have a president, treasurer, and secretary; thus he remains CEO on Tesla’s investors’ page.