Tesla's No. 2 person, Musk personally gave him 400 million shares, and he is still replying to messages at three or four o'clock every day

If you have to restore the information of employees and leaders at three or four o'clock every night, and each email must be replied within 5 minutes, and at the same time almost all year round, will you go crazy?

It is estimated that many people can't stand this kind of work, but if you are told that if you continue to work at this intensity for 10 years, you can get 400 million shares, then what would you think?

When Musk came to China in 2023, in addition to visiting the Shanghai Gigafactory and meeting with Chinese leaders, he also did an important thing, that is, he gave Zhu Xiaotong 400 million Tesla shares. Not long ago, Zhu Xiaotong was just promoted to the global vice president of Tesla Motors, which means that in the automotive business, Zhu Xiaotong is already second in command after Musk.

When Zhu Xiaotong walked behind Musk, it can be said that he was proud, and many people also thought that he was Tesla's Cook. Zhu Xiaotong, Tesla's No. 2 person, is also an out-and-out workaholic. Musk's request for his subordinates is 15 minutes to reply to emails, and Zhu Xiaotong's request is 5 minutes.

Many people don't know that Tesla can become the most successful electric car brand, Zhu Xiaotong can be said to be the greatest, he saved Tesla's crisis twice, once to open Tesla's sales in China, and once to put the Shanghai Gigafactory into mass production in 10 months.

In the past, there was no shortage of Chinese executives in global technology companies, but most of them were Chinese who grew up studying in the United States, such as Kai-Fu Lee, Jensen Huang and others. From China to global executives, not only in the history of Tesla, but even in the entire United States.

Zhu Xiaotong studied at Duke University, a prestigious university in the United States, and after getting his MBA, he did not choose to work in the United States like most international students, he went to work at Kaibo International. The company specializes in consulting services for Chinese companies doing infrastructure business in Africa.

In the first two years, Zhu Xiaotong spent every day in construction sites in Libya and Sudan, and his working and living conditions can be imagined. Zhu Xiaotong is a person who does not admit defeat in his bones. At that time, the pressure of the workers was so great that they often chose to run away.

But Zhu Xiaotong didn't use high-pressure to drive people back. When the workers were hungry and tired halfway through, Zhu Xiaotong brought water and food, and then persuaded them to go back to work.

In this way, in 2 years, Zhu Xiaotong took the lead in gnawing on several of the most difficult projects. At the same time, in the past few years, Zhu Xiaotong has also adapted to the working environment under different cultures. This also laid the foundation for his success in joining Tesla in the future.

Zhu Xiaotong joined Tesla in 2014 as a project manager for a supercharger. This year, the Tesla Model S began to become popular all over the world. But in China, Tesla is a little cold.

The biggest problem in China at the time was the lack of public charging stations. The biggest problem with electric vehicles is charging, and China is different from the United States. Many Americans have their own small yards, so it is very convenient to install charging piles. This is not the case in China, where many people do not even have their own fixed parking spaces.

At that time, there was a car owner in Guangzhou, and he brought a Tesla in Beijing. But how to drive Tesla back to Guangzhou has become a problem. Because there were no public charging piles from Beijing to Guangzhou at that time.

In the end, the owner chose a hardcore plan, he did not choose the way to consign the car, but bought 20 Tesla charging piles, and then built his own charging piles along the way. This incident also gave Zhu Xiaotong great inspiration, if the public charging station can be built well, it can promote Tesla's sales in China.

At that time, Zhu Xiaotong was the only one in the whole team, but he quickly took action, starting with the formation of the team, and then negotiating with the government, taking land and policies, and starting to build charging piles.

Zhu Xiaotong can handle such a complex situation in Africa, let alone solve these relatively simple problems in China. By the end of 2014, Zhu Xiaotong had 34 charging stations in China, as well as 142 superchargers, and more than 600 destination charging stations.

In Zhu Xiaotong's layout, not only there are charging stations in the city, but also charging piles along the tourist routes. After the basic network was built, it was really of great help to Tesla's sales.

At the same time, Zhu Xiaotong also became famous because of the super charging pile project, and was finally promoted to the president of the China region. However, at that time, Zhu Xiaotong's pressure was also very great, and the sales volume in China was only 3,500 units that year, and the previous two presidents left after less than a year.

After Zhu Xiaotong took office, he began to adjust his sales strategy. At that time, Tesla's two products were S and X, and the prices were both millions. The people who originally bought these Teslas were avid tech enthusiasts. But Zhu Xiaotong slowly discovered that these people have always been a very niche group.

So he began to focus on another huge group, that is, the people who used to buy million-level luxury cars. These people have already owned Mercedes-Benz and BMW, so the appearance of Tesla has brought them a new feeling, especially those young owners.

As a result, Tesla's sales in China began to rise. In 2017, Musk launched the people-friendly modle 3, which also greatly helped Zhu Xiaotong.

He also ushered in his own battle to become truly famous. Musk's strategy was quickly adjusted, and what he wanted to do was not a million-level high-end luxury car, but to make an electric car that everyone could afford to drive, just like Toyota.

In order to solve the problem of production capacity, Tesla reached a cooperation with the Shanghai government. This super factory project naturally fell on Zhu Xiaotong's head. In 2018, in Shanghai Lingang, Tesla won a total of 1,297 acres of industrial land.

Zhu Xiaotong led the team to complete the project, planning and site selection in 3 days, completed all the approval work in 5 months, and started construction in January 2019, and Zhu Xiaotong took 10 months to make this super factory produce the first Tesla.

Such a Chinese speed can be said to have saved Tesla. In 2010, Tesla built a factory in the United States, and it took more than 2 years to produce the first Tesla.

In addition to the magic of China's infrastructure, Zhu's workaholic spirit is also key. He works 20 hours a day almost all year round.

Ability coupled with hard work has created Zhu Xiaotong's success. After the completion of the Shanghai Gigafactory, it will provide half of Tesla's global production capacity. It is the construction and testing of the super factory that can greatly reduce Tesla's production costs, and the price will also be lowered, and finally ushered in a big explosion in sales.

Now many people already think that Zhu Xiaotong will be Musk's successor in the future. In fact, for Zhu Xiaotong, he has written his name in the history of the development of electric vehicles in the world.