Elon Musk's need for speed in everything he does is what sets him apart, a former Tesla exec says

• A former Tesla president told "The Knowledge Project" how Elon Musk drove the carmaker's success.
• Jon McNeill said Musk wanted everything done as quickly as possible.
• This also showed in Musk's communication style, preferring 3-sentence emails.

Elon Musk's need for speed was key to Tesla's push toward the mass market, and what sets him apart from other CEOs, one of the company's former presidents said.

"The thing with Elon that separates him from other people is that a lot of people would be like, 'Oh, we'll do that next week.' No. It's like the timing is as fast as you can," Jon McNeill told "The Knowledge Project" podcast in Monday's episode.

"He believes that speed of all types — speed of decision-making, speed of cash through the business, speed of response time — creates competitive advantage, because your competitors are probably moving slower," he added.

McNeill was Tesla's president of global sales, marketing, policy, and services from 2015 to 2018, before leaving to join rideshare platform Lyft as COO.

He joined when the company was unprofitable, expanding its stores and charging network while preparing to launch the Model 3 — the more affordable EV that proved pivotal to Tesla's success.

Musk's fixation on speed also showed through in his communication style.

"It has to be concise," McNeill said.

The former Tesla exec recounted how Musk once came up with the idea of running the EV maker on three-sentence emails.

For example, outline the problem in your first sentence, then suggest a solution, and then outline the next steps, such as requesting resources.

"It was really the key to communicating with him," McNeill said, adding that it showed he'd really thought about the solution and next steps before asking Musk.

A second key was to give Musk bad news as quickly as possible so it could be addressed before it worsened.

"He said this to everybody, because bad news only gets worse with time," McNeill said. "The way that you could get on his bad side was saving bad news."