Elon Musk’s ‘right hand’

Birchall, 47 years old, is considered one of the most important people behind the success of Elon Musk and the network of American billionaire relationships. He is seen as Musk’s “butler” when he runs the family company Excession – which specializes in handling everything from arranging loans, hiring bodyguards, buying and selling homes to crazy and often crazy ideas. Controversial of the billionaire.

For behind-the-scenes people like Birchall, the operations are mostly silent and unknown. However, his role was really exposed through Musk’s acquisition of Twitter.

Key figures in the Twitter deal

Birchall has been described as “essentially the shaper of Musk – a capricious, often controversial billionaire”. That role became increasingly complicated when Musk tried to buy Twitter for $44 billion, but it was Birchall who “turned the money around”.

According to some sources told Bloomberg, Birchall was part of Musk’s circle with Wall Street to arrange loans – which was key to ensuring the Twitter deal was completed. Despite his lack of experience in billion-dollar deals, Birchall has a good relationship with banks through his former company Morgan Stanley to promote borrowing or investment.

On May 5, Musk revealed that a group of investors are contributing more than $ 7 billion to support the purchase of Twitter. They include Oracle’s Larry Ellison, venture capital firm Sequoia Capital and the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. Binance. An insider at Binance said that Birchall was one of the contacts. He actively negotiates via videocall to help promote the transaction.

Peaceful life

Birchall is described as a gentleman. However, with his not-so-distinctive appearance, his former colleagues at Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch don’t seem to remember him at all.

Birchall started working in finance at Goldman Sachs in 1999, after graduating from Brigham Young University. But shortly after, in 2000, he moved to Merrill Lynch in Los Angeles. There, he was fired for “sending letters to clients without management’s approval”.

In 2010, Birchall joined Morgan Stanley. Some people say Birchall is not so great at work but is good at managing wealth, especially for the rich.

Then Musk called Birchall.

In 2016, Birchall left Morgan Stanley and helped Tesla found Excession, named after the sci-fi novel by Iain Banks. The content of the book focuses on an alien object called Excession, where many forces want to gain control.

Much of managing a home office is culturally appropriate. However, Excession seems to be very small compared to what one imagines behind Musk – the richest man in the world with a fortune of $250 billion, according to the index. Bloomberg Billionaires Index. In fact, Musk’s assets are all in his own companies including Tesla, SpaceX, Boring Company and Neuralink. In addition, he also invested in cryptocurrencies and real estate before selling them.

In the past, Musk has admitted Excession has only two people running. It is far from similar family companies. For example, Bill Gates’ Cascade employs dozens of people from many different groups to manage a variety of portfolios including venture capital, real estate, stocks…

According to a Morgan Stanley report, the heads of a large family office typically earn between one million and three million dollars a year. The amount can be a lot higher depending on the liability, especially if it includes directly managing the money by selecting stocks or hedge funds to invest in.

Unlike his boss with a Twitter account of nearly 90 million followers, Birchall’s presence on the platform is very faint. He follows about 40 people, including Musk, who have never tweeted or liked a single tweet. On Facebook, he is more active, occasionally posting family photos or sharing some articles.

Musk’s great assistant

In 2020, Birchall and his family moved to Texas, bought a house in Austin worth 2.25 million USD to easily manage Excession and a number of organizations such as Musk Foundation, Ad Astra school… All listed Birchall is a senior person, like a director, manager, chief financial officer or some other title. He is also the CEO of the brain chip implant company Neuralink.

However, he does not necessarily run the businesses or organizations mentioned above. An unnamed source said Birchall rarely visits the Neuralink office and does not participate in the company’s day-to-day business.

Instead, Birchall has a more important mission. He regularly builds relationships with major banks to which Musk often makes large loans. The Twitter deal is a prime example.

In 2018, Musk was investigated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) when he tweeted about the possibility of the company going private. Before this crisis, Musk is said to have sent hundreds of messages to the only person Birchall.

Also in 2018, when Musk was sued for “defamation” for proposing to use a SpaceX submarine to rescue a children’s soccer team stuck in Thailand, Birchall used the nickname James Brickhouse and went out of his way to protect protect the boss. In the end, Musk won the case.

In recent years, Birchall has played a major role in liaising with nonprofits on behalf of the Musk Foundation, such as pledging $100 million to environmental protection, gifts to Feeding Texas and millions of dollars for Covid-19 research.

Those who have come in contact with Birchall rate him as a wonderful person. “If you don’t integrate into the culture with the family at work, you won’t last long. I believe that in addition to the job skills that Birchall has always been good at, he also has a great interaction with Musk. “, said Tayyab Mohamed, CEO of Agreus Group, which specializes in human resources for family companies.

Bao Lam (according to Bloomberg)