Elon Musk says story about fired assistant is 'total nonsense'

In the last couple of days, a story lifted from Ashlee Vance's biography of Elon Musk has been making the rounds on the internet, claiming that Musk fired his assistant of 12 years when she wanted a raise.

The story portrays Musk as an unusually cruel (or extremely efficient, depending on your perspective) leader, but now Musk himself has taken to Twitter to explain that the story isn't true. 

The anecdote, originally published in Vance's book Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, goes like this. Mary Beth Brown asked for a significant raise after having worked as Musk's assistant for 12 years. Musk responded by asking Brown to take two weeks' leave to see whether she's really indispensable to him. After he'd realized she's not, he promptly fired her.  Read more...