Top CEO Mishaps and Misadventures of 2023: Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and Marc Benioff in Review
Looking back at 2023, we witnessed yet another year filled with non-stop news coverage dominated by influential corporate leaders, presenting a mix of embarrassing and truly strange moments. While certain CEOs like Elon Musk seemed to enjoy being in the limelight, others found themselves unexpectedly caught in the unforgiving scrutiny of social media. From Elon Musk to Sam Altman and Marc Benioff, here are some notable instances of management blunders that garnered significant attention.
Musk’s moment
Of all the jaw-dropping Musk moments this year, the pinnacle came on stage at the New York Times DealBook Summit when he told advertisers who have stopped spending on X to “f—” themselves. “Hey, Bob, if you’re in the audience,” he added, calling over Bob Iger, CEO of Walt Disney Co. One company among many distanced itself after Musk’s endorsement of an anti-Semitic message in November.
Still, if advertisers leave X, the failure of the platform is their fault, not his, Musk said, calling their withdrawal a form of blackmail. He said he wouldn’t “kill” to prove he was trustworthy.
Billionaire cage fight bluff
In June, Musk challenged Mark Zuckerberg to a duel in 2023, posting on X: “I’m up for a cage match if he is lol.” The special invitation came shortly after news broke that Meta Platforms Inc. was planning to launch Threads as a competitor to X.
Zuckerberg, who practices Brazilian jiu-jitsu, agreed. Musk promoted the showdown in Vegas in August, then started a rumor that it might actually be staged at the Colosseum in Rome, which Italy’s culture minister immediately denied. But Musk started making excuses as the summer weeks wore on, saying he might need neck/back/shoulder surgery. Zuckerberg eventually called his bluff, saying it was “time to move on.”
An example of OpenAI
The sudden firing and rehiring of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman by the board took place over the long weekend. The whole thing was pretty weird, and some of the drama was revealed on social media. Between angry investors and workers who virtually all threatened to quit, the government quickly backed down.
As rumors swirled that he might return, Altman posted a photo of himself in the San Francisco office with the visitor tag: “First and last time I wear one of these.” In a particularly strange twist, one of the ouster’s leaders, OpenAI founder and chief scientist Ilja Sutskever, later stepped down and vowed to “do everything” to merge the company. Altman responded with three red hearts.
Leave “pity city” behind
A short video of office furniture maker MillerKnoll Inc. CEO Andi Owen chastising staff about year-end bonuses went viral on the Internet in April. “Spend your time and effort thinking about the $26 million we need, and don’t think about what you’re going to do if you don’t get the bonus,” Owen said in the video, referring to the internal yardstick. “I had an old boss who told me once, ‘You can visit pity town, but you can’t live there.’ So people, leave pity town.”
Owen sent an email to staff and met with company executives following the backlash, according to a person familiar with the situation. “Andi believes fiercely in this team and all that we can accomplish together, and will not be deterred by a 90-second video taken out of context and posted on social media,” MillerKnoll spokesperson Kris Marubio said via email.
Cord massage time
In October, Tony Fernandes, co-founder and chief executive of AirAsia, took to LinkedIn to post a photo of himself, shirtless, getting a massage while sitting at a boardroom table. “I used to love Indonesia and the AirAsia culture to be able to get a massage and have an executive meeting,” he wrote. Online followers were quick to speak out, with some commenters calling it inappropriate for the manager to practice bare-chested personal grooming while allegedly running a business. One person said she didn’t think women in her company “would be comfortable or safe in that context, and because you’re the boss, they’re not likely to challenge you or say anything.”
Fernandes said that he had just endured an 18-hour flight and was in pain, and that the massage was a spontaneous suggestion from someone at the Indonesian operation. He deleted the message and apologized: “I didn’t mean to offend
HBO troll
Casey Bloys, president of content for HBO and Max, apologized for using fake X accounts to troll television critics who gave bad reviews of TV shows, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times. According to the Times, Bloys said his passion for his company’s programming — and spending too much time on social media during the Covid-19 pandemic — led him to do it, and he concluded it was a “very, very stupid idea.”
The messages, first reported in Rolling Stone, came to light in a former HBO employee’s wrongful termination lawsuit. Bloys apologized to the journalists mentioned in the article and said he will now send direct messages to those with whom he disagrees.
Pre-pink slip digital detox
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff says he took a 10-day trip to French Polynesia for a so-called digital detox before the company lays off about 8,000 employees. A digital detox is when someone gives up their phone or computer for a while to feel present and less dependent on technology and social media.
In a letter to employees at the time, Benioff said the company overhired during the pandemic, for which he took responsibility. But Benioff also seemed tone-deaf, arriving late to a meeting the day after the layoff and joking, “did I miss something?” Some pointed out the irony of the sudden job cuts after Benioff often characterized the company as Ohana, Hawaiian for family.
