What is known about Elon Musk's long-time assistant Mary Beth Brown?
She seems to have an important influence, especially one of moderation. She is invisible in the media though.
6 Answers
Views • Upvoted by Jim Cantrell, On SpaceX founding team with Elon Musk and Kenneth Hatter, Rocket builder at SpaceX.
Mary Beth Brown started working for Elon soon after we moved to LA twelve or thirteen years ago (Elon and I were still married then). MB was an exceptional and devoted employee of Elon's and lovely to deal with on a personal level. She gave her life to the job -- and to our family -- and the news of her departure was a shock to me.
Apparently (according, I believe, to Ashlee Vance, who wrote the book on Elon), MB asked for a raise. E told her that if she was truly critical to SpaceX, it should not be able to operate in her absence (or something to that effect). He suggested a 3-week experiment to test this hypothesis/her worth. This reminds me of something similar he once said to me, many years ago, after I came back from a week's visit with my family in Canada -- that his life had operated quite smoothly in my absence. He was letting me know that I was an incompetent house manager. (He was not wrong.) So of the different stories I have heard behind MB's departure from SpaceX, this is the one that resonates with me. (Although you would *never* use the word 'incompetent' in association with MB!)
Wherever MB is and whatever she is doing, I hope her life is fabulous. She and I have not always been on the same side, but I have -- and will always have -- tremendous respect for that remarkable woman.
Apparently (according, I believe, to Ashlee Vance, who wrote the book on Elon), MB asked for a raise. E told her that if she was truly critical to SpaceX, it should not be able to operate in her absence (or something to that effect). He suggested a 3-week experiment to test this hypothesis/her worth. This reminds me of something similar he once said to me, many years ago, after I came back from a week's visit with my family in Canada -- that his life had operated quite smoothly in my absence. He was letting me know that I was an incompetent house manager. (He was not wrong.) So of the different stories I have heard behind MB's departure from SpaceX, this is the one that resonates with me. (Although you would *never* use the word 'incompetent' in association with MB!)
Wherever MB is and whatever she is doing, I hope her life is fabulous. She and I have not always been on the same side, but I have -- and will always have -- tremendous respect for that remarkable woman.
Mary Beth Brown seems like a real champion. I find it amazing that in this current "women in tech" climate she hasn't achieved god status. I think as people learn more about her, she will become more of a public figure. She is already a kind of hero / superstar in my view.
A lot of people have described her as a Pepper Potts to Elon Musk's IronMan. Honestly, Pepper Potts' job seems weak compared to the things that Mary Beth Brown had to deal with. Keep in mind, Mary Beth Brown is an actual person :D
Here are some things I learned about her that I really like. It seems she has been most influential in building company culture at SpaceX.
- Aside from helping Elon with all of his daily tasks, appointments, and schedule, she was one of Elon's most trusted advisor.
- She was instrumental in building relationships with space contractors and even made some massive deals for SpaceX (can't remember) but they were massive numbers, probably hundreds of millions.
- She seems to have an uncanny ability to see ahead, for example an early interest in satellite tech landed her a job at SpaceX initially.
- She helped onboard new SpaceX employees, and instill in new recruits the vision of SpaceX.
- She was always apparently well dressed, not formal, but had a very straight forward way of talking with people.
- Some have said that she could run Tesla and speak for Elon in his absence on most matters that nobody else could in the company.
(will think about this more and add later, let me know if you have more suggestions).
Last I've heard, she was laid off. The story goes like this (I don't know any of these people, I only read things). Mary wanted to get a raise so she asked for one from Elon. Elon said she should take a vacation so he can see how hard her job really was. If it was a hard job, then he'd give her a raise. Apparently when she was gone, he must not have missed her much, because he refused to give her a raise. This was basically firing her and she never returned to SpaceX to work again.
I have also heard rumors that Brown being laid off / quitting had more to do Talulah Riley (Elon's current wife) being jealous of how much time Elon and Mary spent together, which is sorta understandable. I really hate gossip but just imagine if IronMan had a wife and it wasn't Pepper Potts...?
---------
I'm summarizing all the points I think are interesting about the Elon Musk biography here:Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future: Book Summary
You can see more information about the book itself here: Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future: Ashlee Vance: 9780062301239: Amazon.com: Books
[Originally posted as a comment here: https://www.quora.com/Wha
Mary Beth Brown was one of the earliest and most long-lasting pillars of Elon's business life. The closest thing to the Pepper Pots to his Tony Stark, as far as that well-worn metaphor goes.
I won't rehash her general history, the other answers here do a fine job. This answer is to bring some more detail and "objectivity" to the climax of the story ~ Mary Beth Brown's "fall-from-grace", which is sometimes over-simplified with too much emotion in my humble opinion...
Here's where things started going south on her - quoting the Ashlee Vance biography:
"Brown went to Musk and asked that she be compensated on par with SpaceX’s top executives, since she was handling so much of Musk’s scheduling across two companies, doing public relations work and often making business decisions. Musk replied that Brown should take a couple of weeks off, and he would take on her duties and gauge how hard they were. When Brown returned, Musk let her know that he didn’t need her anymore, and he asked Shotwell’s assistant to begin scheduling his meetings. Brown, still loyal and hurt, didn’t want to discuss any of this with me. Musk said that she had become too comfortable speaking on his behalf and that, frankly, she needed a life. Other people grumbled that Brown and Riley clashed and that this was the root cause of Brown’s ouster."
From the Footnotes: "As Musk recalled, “I told her, ‘Look, I think you’re very valuable. Maybe that compensation is right. You need to take two weeks’ vacation, and I’m going to assess whether that’s true or not.’ Before this came up, I had offered her multiple all-expenses-paid vacations. I really wanted her to take a vacation. When she got back, my conclusion was just that the relationship was not going to work anymore. Twelve years is a good run for any job. She’ll do a great job for someone.” According to Musk, he offered Brown another position at the company. She declined the offer by never showing up at the office again. Musk gave her twelve months’ severance and has not spoken to her since."
So that's the source material... My own interpretation is that MBB's request to be elevated brought Elon to a decision point on a train of thought he had been having, but was avoiding ~ That she used to be invaluable, but now, after 12 years of change and development in the companies and in himself, she was no longer near-irreplaceably necessary. She's not like a JB Straubel to Tesla.
Yet here she was pouring all her life into this career with him as if her part to play was THAT critical. Acting entitled to speak for him (apparently somewhat justifiably, but still...) Possibly even clashing with his wife (rumor-sounding but believable...)
So in his uber-rational based-on-the-data way, he finally put the necessity of her duties in his life to the test - and gave himself space without her present to consider the situation. And it just confirmed that, **It was a good run, but things are breaking down here now as far as I'm concerned, so let's just finally move on...**
Let's even give Elon some credit and assume he was actually concerned about her personally like he said - Watching her pour all her time into The Work at the expense of A Life the way he is, to the point he couldn't even throw a vacation at her, when unlike him, her duties just weren't worth that much of a price...
Problem is, from an interpersonal and public relations perspective, he handled it terribly. If only his charmer brother Kimball had been there to advise him how to ease Mary Beth Brown down gently or something.
Also maybe it's just 20/20 hindsight, but MBB could have played the game better too. I mean, after all these years, how well did she really understand Elon's mindset, how he values things and people, and the dynamics of her situation, if she clearly didn't even imagine the possibility of things going this way?
And yeah it must have hurt like a stab wound, but never showing up again rather than taking a transfer position and working from there towards what you want in the company isn't playing for the power you want. It's succumbing to your emotions when things don't go your way. Doesn't matter if you're justified in feeling that way unfortunately.
Just how it looks to me from here. This is all the info we have to work from after all.
Mary Beth Brown was one of the earliest and most long-lasting pillars of Elon's business life. The closest thing to the Pepper Pots to his Tony Stark, as far as that well-worn metaphor goes.
I won't rehash her general history, the other answers here do a fine job. This answer is to bring some more detail and "objectivity" to the climax of the story ~ Mary Beth Brown's "fall-from-grace", which is sometimes over-simplified with too much emotion in my humble opinion...
Here's where things started going south on her - quoting the Ashlee Vance biography:
"Brown went to Musk and asked that she be compensated on par with SpaceX’s top executives, since she was handling so much of Musk’s scheduling across two companies, doing public relations work and often making business decisions. Musk replied that Brown should take a couple of weeks off, and he would take on her duties and gauge how hard they were. When Brown returned, Musk let her know that he didn’t need her anymore, and he asked Shotwell’s assistant to begin scheduling his meetings. Brown, still loyal and hurt, didn’t want to discuss any of this with me. Musk said that she had become too comfortable speaking on his behalf and that, frankly, she needed a life. Other people grumbled that Brown and Riley clashed and that this was the root cause of Brown’s ouster."
From the Footnotes: "As Musk recalled, “I told her, ‘Look, I think you’re very valuable. Maybe that compensation is right. You need to take two weeks’ vacation, and I’m going to assess whether that’s true or not.’ Before this came up, I had offered her multiple all-expenses-paid vacations. I really wanted her to take a vacation. When she got back, my conclusion was just that the relationship was not going to work anymore. Twelve years is a good run for any job. She’ll do a great job for someone.” According to Musk, he offered Brown another position at the company. She declined the offer by never showing up at the office again. Musk gave her twelve months’ severance and has not spoken to her since."
So that's the source material... My own interpretation is that MBB's request to be elevated brought Elon to a decision point on a train of thought he had been having, but was avoiding ~ That she used to be invaluable, but now, after 12 years of change and development in the companies and in himself, she was no longer near-irreplaceably necessary. She's not like a JB Straubel to Tesla.
Yet here she was pouring all her life into this career with him as if her part to play was THAT critical. Acting entitled to speak for him (apparently somewhat justifiably, but still...) Possibly even clashing with his wife (rumor-sounding but believable...)
So in his uber-rational based-on-the-data way, he finally put the necessity of her duties in his life to the test - and gave himself space without her present to consider the situation. And it just confirmed that, **It was a good run, but things are breaking down here now as far as I'm concerned, so let's just finally move on...**
Let's even give Elon some credit and assume he was actually concerned about her personally like he said - Watching her pour all her time into The Work at the expense of A Life the way he is, to the point he couldn't even throw a vacation at her, when unlike him, her duties just weren't worth that much of a price...
Problem is, from an interpersonal and public relations perspective, he handled it terribly. If only his charmer brother Kimball had been there to advise him how to ease Mary Beth Brown down gently or something.
Also maybe it's just 20/20 hindsight, but MBB could have played the game better too. I mean, after all these years, how well did she really understand Elon's mindset, how he values things and people, and the dynamics of her situation, if she clearly didn't even imagine the possibility of things going this way?
And yeah it must have hurt like a stab wound, but never showing up again rather than taking a transfer position and working from there towards what you want in the company isn't playing for the power you want. It's succumbing to your emotions when things don't go your way. Doesn't matter if you're justified in feeling that way unfortunately.
Just how it looks to me from here. This is all the info we have to work from after all.
Mary Beth called to invite us to meet with Elon about ET3 and his hyperloop plans (a few weeks before publishing his hyperloop alpha paper). I gave her contact information for Brenda to set it all up. The meeting occurred at SpaceX 22 July 2013. Mary Beth ushered us to the conference room.
After the meeting, Mary Beth gave the 6 of us from ET3 Global Alliance Inc. a tour of SpaceX. Mary Beth was competent and energetic in answering my very detailed engineering type questions. She also seemed to be under a lot of stress. I asked her how she liked working for Elon, and it seemed for about a half second that she was about to cry. She composed herself and said something to the effect that the hours were long, and the amount of travel was tough. Sensing she was uncomfortable about the subject, i returned to less personal conversation.
I was very impressed with Mary Beth (more so than with Elon). She asked me to keep her informed about ET3. About a month later, i called her direct number at SpaceX/Tesla but someone else answered her phone and said she was not available. My first thought was that she must have quit.
Later, one of our team told me that he had heard that she had been fired right after our meeting with Musk; however there are some things in our e-mail records leading up to the meeting that do not align with his story of why she was fired, so i will not forward what may be hearsay.
At any rate, a check of our e-mail records indicate that mail to her address at SpaceX gets an automated response to contact someone else, and no forwarding address. I have not been able to find any contact information for her. If you hear from her, please ask her to contact us at ET3.
After the meeting, Mary Beth gave the 6 of us from ET3 Global Alliance Inc. a tour of SpaceX. Mary Beth was competent and energetic in answering my very detailed engineering type questions. She also seemed to be under a lot of stress. I asked her how she liked working for Elon, and it seemed for about a half second that she was about to cry. She composed herself and said something to the effect that the hours were long, and the amount of travel was tough. Sensing she was uncomfortable about the subject, i returned to less personal conversation.
I was very impressed with Mary Beth (more so than with Elon). She asked me to keep her informed about ET3. About a month later, i called her direct number at SpaceX/Tesla but someone else answered her phone and said she was not available. My first thought was that she must have quit.
Later, one of our team told me that he had heard that she had been fired right after our meeting with Musk; however there are some things in our e-mail records leading up to the meeting that do not align with his story of why she was fired, so i will not forward what may be hearsay.
At any rate, a check of our e-mail records indicate that mail to her address at SpaceX gets an automated response to contact someone else, and no forwarding address. I have not been able to find any contact information for her. If you hear from her, please ask her to contact us at ET3.
I always liked Mary Beth and her competent style. She keep the trains running on time at SpaceX and for Elon's myriad other things going on. She is a nice person and very dedicated to helping Elon. Its a shame to see her gone the way that she was dispatched. Justine's answer is actually correct as I got that from several different people. I will say that Mary Beth would not be someone that Talulah would become jealous of. I could imagine a cat fight of sorts but no jealousy.
