“Is Las Vegas at stake?” Elon Musk asked in one of his late-night calls with his sales staff in September 2018.
Las Vegas was. Cayle Hunter, who had been on the job for just nine months supervising a Tesla Inc. sales team from an office not far from the Strip, eagerly awaited Musk’s next question.
“How many people did you sign up to pick you up today?” asked Mr. Musk.
This was Mr. Hunter’s big moment: his team had scheduled 1,700 people to pick up their Model 3s in the next few days, a record, and he was proud to announce the achievement. The compact Model 3 was Musk’s bid to transform Tesla into a mainstream automaker and usher in a new era of electric vehicles, and at the time, Tesla needed to move thousands of them to stay afloat.
Hunter had set a record, but Musk was not happy. The Tesla CEO ordered Hunter to double the number the next day or else he would personally take over.
Source: WSJ
