Unsealed deposition with Elon Musk's righthand man reveals new details about their working relationship
Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg/Getty Images
- Previously sealed court documents provide insight into Elon Musk's righthand man, Jared Birchall.
- Birchall, a former banker, manages Musk's finances, personal affairs, and private security.
- In a deposition for Twitter's lawsuit against Musk, Birchall describes his relationship with the Tesla CEO.
Ever wondered what it's like to serve as Elon Musk's righthand man?
A trove of previously unreleased documents related to Musk's legal battle with Twitter provides a peek into Musk's working relationship with Jared Birchall, a former banker who runs the billionaire's family office.
Birchall sat for a deposition in Twitter's lawsuit against Musk in September 2022. The over 350-page court document was initially sealed but was released to the public in July 2024, after PlainSite owner Aaron Greenspan filed for the documents to be released in the Delaware Court of Chancery. (The case was settled in October 2022 after Musk agreed to honor his offer to purchase the company for $44 billion.)
Birchall, who serves as Musk's chief of staff and is listed as the CEO of Neuralink, said in the deposition that he met Musk while he was still serving as a private wealth advisor.
"The very first time that I met Elon Musk, though he probably wouldn't remember, was as an employee at Morgan Stanley years earlier," Birchall told Twitter's lawyers.
The banker said he was later brought on to lead Musk's family office around 2016 after one of Musk's friends, an unnamed Merrill Lynch employee, recommended Birchall for the role.
Birchall said he has since grown Musk's family office, known as Excession LLC, to include multiple bookkeepers and property managers. His role includes all things Musk— from his financial transactions and bills to "personal affairs" and private security — Birchall said, describing his role as plugging "whatever gaps needed to be filled."
Throughout the deposition, Birchall described instances where he reviewed documents to prepare them for Musk's eyes, vetted potential employees, acted as a liaison to eager investors, as well as served as a stand-in for Musk in meetings with executives.
Birchall said he reports solely to Musk and has a standing weekly meeting with the billionaire to go over his finances and various projects. The pair also often communicate via Signal messages that are set to auto-delete after a week in order to optimize Musk's security, Birchall said.
"The first four years that I worked for him, I worked half of the week at SpaceX and had it continually pounded into me the many different adversaries that were seeking to access his information," Birchall said in the deposition.
The banker said he was involved in Musk's initial Twitter stock purchases and even at one point advised Musk against joining Twitter's board. Birchall said Musk typically brings him in to help when he decides to build a new company and the banker recalled riding in Musk's private jet from Austin, Texas to San Francisco, California in order to attend a meeting with Twitter executives alongside Musk.
"He is constantly thinking about companies that are yet to be build that he wants to build, and has been on the cusp of building numerous companies that aren't currently in existence," Birchall testified in the deposition.
Representatives for Birchall and Musk did not respond to a request for comment.
Business Insider's Hayley Cuccinello previously reported that Birchall has been described as a staunch loyalist to Musk and even helped the billionaire hire a private investigator after the infamous "pedo" tweet got the Tesla CEO in hot water.
Correction: July 24, 2024 — An earlier version of this article included the incorrect year in which the court documents were made public. It was 2024, not 2023.
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