Pretoria-born billionaire Elon Musk has denied a bizarre story where he allegedly fired his long-time assistant after she asked for a pay rise.
According to the Daily Mail, Musk’s long-time assistant of 12 years, Mary Beth, asked the Tesla chief executive for a significant pay increase.
Musk then allegedly told Brown to take two weeks off, during which time he would take over her responsibilities, then decide if she was worth the raise.
When Brown returned to work, the story goes, she was told by her boss that he no longer needed her to work for him.
On Thursday, Musk took to Twitter to deny the story claiming that it was “total nonsense”.
The story had appeared in the 2015 biography written on the Pretoria Boys' High old boy, but resurfaced after Business Insider wrote an article on Tuesday about the “two-week test”.
Musk posted on Twitter that: “‘Of all the bogus anecdotes, this one troubles me the most.
"Ashlee never actually ran this story by me or my assistant. It is total nonsense.”
He added: "Ashlee Vance’s biography is mostly correct, but also rife with errors and never independently fact-checked, despite my request that he do so.
"Mary Beth was an amazing assistant for over 10 years, but as company complexity grew, the role required several specialists versus one generalist."
Vance’s book is full of colourful anecdotes about the billionaire. Some of these he has denied.
He has once reported to have said that if there is a way he could not eat and work more, he would.
The book also claims that the Tesla boss once berated an employee who missed a meeting because he wanted to be at the birth of his child.
"That is no excuse," Musk allegedly said in an e-mail. "I am extremely disappointed.
"You need to figure out where your priorities are. We’re changing the world and changing history, and you either commit or you don’t," the missive apparently said.