Elon Musk | (Photo: Shutterstock)
The day before Elon Musk was scheduled to speak at a celebration of Tesla’s futuristic Cybertruck pickup truck in November, a Florida man, Paul Overeem, was arrested near the company’s factory in Austin, Texas, and accused by authorities of planning a “mass-casualty event” there.
The incident made headlines later. What got less notoriety was what happened at the Tesla event, which was held at the factory in Austin.
According to two people familiar with the preparations and documents seen by The New York Times, security personnel had been alerted to Overeem’s threats and had gone into full force. The guest list was carefully selected, and each person was vetted well in advance. More than three dozen Tesla security officers were stationed throughout the room when Musk, who runs the automaker, took the stage. He also had bodyguards from his private security firm, Foundation Security, on hand.
Musk, 53, has long cultivated a carefree persona, traveling the world, socializing with moguls, world leaders and celebrities, and smoking marijuana in public. But in private, he has become increasingly entrenched behind a growing phalanx of armed bodyguards as he has become richer, more famous and more outspoken — and as the threats against him have evolved.
The world’s richest man, with a net worth of more than $240 billion, now regularly faces stalkers and death threats, according to police documents and internal Tesla records. While many high-profile people face threats, Musk has transformed his own protection in recent years to deal with the change, expanding already robust personal security beyond that of other billionaires. Musk and his companies Tesla and SpaceX have paid millions of dollars a year for his security.
His security team now operates like a mini Secret Service and is protected more like a head of state than a business executive, security experts said. Musk, who was once flanked by two bodyguards, travels with as many as 20 security professionals who show up to scout escape routes or clear a room before he enters. They often carry weapons and have a medical professional in tow for Musk, whom his security team has codenamed “Voyager.”
Musk’s lifestyle today is different from that of other ultra-rich people. Warren E. Buffett, who is worth more than $145 billion, for many years employed just one personal bodyguard. (It’s unclear how many bodyguards he has now; his spokesman said Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway used several security firms.)
Musk’s predecessor at X, Jack Dorsey, used to walk miles around San Francisco without bodyguards. This year, Tesla disclosed for the first time in documents that it paid $2.4 million for a share of Musk’s protection in 2023. It paid $500,000 in the first two months of 2024, more than five times the average spent every two months in 2019, according to Tesla documents. From 2015 to 2018, Musk spent an average of $145,000 a month on security, according to invoices and receipts viewed by The Times.
By contrast, Apple spent $820,000 last year to protect its chief executive, Tim Cook, while Amazon shells out $1.6 million a year to protect its founder, Jeff Bezos. One of the few companies spending more is Meta, which spent $23.4 million last year on security for its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, the documents show.
(Only the headline and image of this report may have been reworked by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
First published: September 15, 2024 | 11:32 PM IS
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