Elon Musk's need for speed in everything he does is what sets him apart, a former Tesla exec says

Elon Musk's need for speed was key to Tesla's shove toward the bulk market, and what sets him distinct from another CEOs, among the company's erstwhile presidents said.

"The item alongside Elon that separates him from another group is that a lot of group would be like, 'Oh, we'll do that next week.' No. It's akin the timing is as accelerated as you can," Jon McNeill told "The Knowledge Project" podcast in Monday's episode.

"He believes that speed of all types — speed of decision-making, speed of prosperity through the business, speed of reply period — creates rivalrous advantage, since your competitors are likely moving slower," he added.

McNeill was Tesla's chairman of earth sales, marketing, policy, and services from 2015 to 2018, before leaving to associate rideshare phase Lyft as COO.

He joined whenever the business was unprofitable, expanding its stores and charging network during preparing to launch the Model 3 — the additional affordable EV that proved pivotal to Tesla's success.

Musk's fixation on speed additionally showed through in his communication style.

"It have to be concise," McNeill said.

The erstwhile Tesla exec recounted how Musk formerly came up alongside the idea of operating the EV creator on three-sentence emails.

For example, outline the issue in your archetypal sentence, afterward propose a solution, and afterward outline the next steps, specified as requesting resources.

"It was really the key to communicating alongside him," McNeill said, adding that it showed he'd really idea concerning the resolution and next steps before asking Musk.

A second key was to provision Musk bad news as quickly as imaginable so it could be addressed before it worsened.

"He stated this to everybody, since bad news lone gets worse alongside time," McNeill said. "The way that you could get on his bad flank was preservation bad news."