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Meet Elon Musk's secretive right-hand man Jared Birchall

Jarred Birchall and Elon Musk.
Elon Musk hired Jarred Birchall to oversee Excession LLC in 2016. (Source: Getty)

With a US$230billion empire and multiple businesses, it's no surprise Elon Musk relies on others to help manage his affairs. But just who is Jared Birchall - often referred to as Musk's right hand man?

Birchall is not only the director of Musk's family office Excession LLC - which is responsible for a range of wealth and investment-management activities - but also the CEO of Neuralink, and a director and executive of The Boring Company.

Musk's right-hand man for the past six years is also said to be the force behind negotiations to organise funds for his US$44 billion buyout of Twitter.

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But what are his duties towards the world's richest man and his estates, and where did he come from?

Birchall's background

Birchall received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brigham Young University in 1999, following which he had a brief stint as a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs in 2000.

The same year, he moved to Merrill Lynch as a private-wealth adviser and worked there until 2010.

Birchall was fired from Merrill Lynch for "sending correspondence to a client without management approval", according to a regulatory report.

He then became a senior vice-president at Morgan Stanley from 2010 to 2016 where he earned a reputation for being adept at handling rich people's wealth.

He was then hired by Musk in 2016 as the managing director of Excession LLC.

Unlike his flamboyant, Twitter-enthusiast boss, Birchall is said to be a quiet and smooth operator.

A report from Moneycontrol revealed Birchall's former classmates and ex-colleagues couldn't recall him distinctly. He is said to have remained in the background through most of his career.

Even wealth managers in the uber-rich fraternity only recognise him by his name and association with Elon Musk.

On the personal front, 47-year-old Birchall is a devout Christian (Mormon), married, and father of five.

Birchall's primary responsibilities

Birchall is one of the most influential people in Musk’s corporate empire, given that he is the director of Excession LLC, the single office through which most of Musk's money is managed.

While there is no accurate information on how much the Tesla supremo pays him for this high-profile job, it is believed he has a large stake in his businesses.

Apart from handling prominent roles at The Boring Company and Neuralink, he is also a board member at the Musk Foundation, and a member of the Dogecoin Foundation’s advisory board (other members include Vitalik Buterin, Billy Markus and Max Keller).

Birchall's appointment ensures Musk's interests are being represented.

He is the man responsible for handling Musk's itinerary. He's entrusted with everything from organising transportation for the boss to jet-set around the world for his various business ventures, to hiring nannies for the kids, and making security arrangements for the billionaire.

Even as he multitasks, Birchall himself works from a standard eight-story office building on the outskirts of Austin, beneath an underpass, according to NDTV.

Managing Musk's image

Elon Musk's 'fixer'Jared Birchall.
In 2018, Jared Birchall hired a private investigator to dig up dirt on a British cave diver who sued Musk over a "defamatory tweet". (Source: Getty) (Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Birchall's duties extend far beyond managing Musk's corporate estates, as he has proven on many occasions.

Not only had he been instrumental in lining up the loans that were crucial to securing the Twitter deal (which is presently on hold), but he has also strongly endorsed Musk's view that Twitter should be an unrestricted platform for free speech.

In 2018, when British cave diver Vernon Unsworth sued Musk for calling him a 'pedo guy', Birchall hired a private investigator to dig up dirt on the diver - who was involved in the rescue of 12 boys and their soccer coach from a flooded cave in Thailand.

He, however, failed to run a background check on the private investigator who, during the testimony, turned out to be a convicted felon known for peddling false information.

When asked to testify, Birchall told the court he had an "instinct to protect Musk".

Notwithstanding the faux pas, Musk won the case. The court deemed Unsworth to be "the first private individual to go to trial over tweets".

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