Elon Drops the Hammer on Twitter: Fire 12 Floors of People? 'Exactly'

👤Elon Musk’s response to a weekend 🐦Twitter post no doubt sent shockwaves throughout the company’s workforce — yet again.

Business man Nick Huber posted a recording of a 2015 Investor Talk series interview of billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn. Icahn tells The New York Times’ Andrew Ross Sorkin a story about his 1984 takeover of ACF Industries, a company that manufactured railroad cars.

When Icahn first looked at ACF, he noticed the stock price was cheap relative to all the assets the company owned. He also noticed they weren’t making any money.

Shortly after striking a deal with ACF, Icahn spent a day at the company’s headquarters in New York where employees occupied twelve floors of office space. At the end of the busy day, he said, “I go home, take a look at my yellow pad. I can’t figure out what the hell they do.”

Icahn went back the next day, which didn’t make things any clearer. “I’m not an idiot. I can’t figure out what the hell they do.”

He scheduled a meeting with the company’s COO, who was based in a separate location. Icahn chuckles as he tells Sorkin, “He was like a John Wayne character. He was a captain in the Marines, a tough guy. I was scared of him.”

“I want to know how many of those guys in New York you need to support your operation here cause I honestly can’t figure out what they do. He says, ‘I’ll tell you what you should do. … You don’t have the balls to do what I’ll tell you to do. … Get rid of all of ’em all tomorrow.'”

“I still was wondering, you know, maybe this guy Joe was a little crazy,” Icahn said. “How could I get rid of 12 floors of people?”