Mid-Year Conversation – 4 June, 9.00-11.00am AEST

Topic: ‘Where is it going to end?’: The ethics of leadership in the tech sector – from Steve Jobs to Elon Musk

Speaker: Dr Scott Taylor, Professor of Leadership & Organisation Studies, University of Birmingham

Link: https://charlessturt.zoom.us/j/65677811058?pwd=Qsl8HCJgtIOVi0uIQRAmmPrIum4KSu.1

Meeting ID: 656 7781 1058

Passcode: 884885

Contact: Alain Neher (aneher@csu.edu.au)

Overview

Business leadership is increasingly intertwined with socio-political leadership, as high-profile corporate leaders leverage their wealth, power, and celebrity status to intervene in state governance, including to the benefit of authoritarian state leaders. Such CEO activism raises significant ethical questions about their role in leading organisations and in democratic societies, including the possibility that the paradigmatic contemporary leadership of the tech sector is based on fascism’s core philosophical tenets (Matten, 2025). To explore this proposal, this research focuses on the most prominent corporate leader of this moment, Elon Musk, the companies he owns or leads, and two protest movements problematising his current political beliefs and management practices: the ‘Tesla Takedown’ grassroots movement, and Tesla mechanics currently striking in Sweden.

The presentation draws on research published with Emma Bell (Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden) and research in progress with Emma and German Bender (Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden).