- Elon Musk's right-hand man is the most straightlaced man you'll ever meet, friends say.
- His duties have few limits, from helping finance the Twitter buy to hiring a private investigator.
- One banker described how Birchall helped lenders "get comfortable with the deal."
When you ask Jared Birchall's neighbors and former colleagues to describe him, they'll tell you he's soft-spoken, personable, and polite — a family man who's a leader at his local church.
In other words, pretty much the opposite of his boss, Elon Musk.
Birchall, a former Morgan Stanley banker, has for six years run Musk's family office, Excession, while mostly avoiding the limelight. He helped Musk arrange $46.5 billion in capital for his surprise takeover of Twitter, putting the quiet money manager back in the news for the first time since 2019, when he had to testify in a defamation suit filed against Musk.
Birchall's virtue is not his financial prowess — one banker who worked on Twitter's financing said he seemed relatively green — but rather his willingness to go to great lengths for Musk. For all the testimonials about his affable nature, Birchall has also shown that he's not afraid to get his hands dirty on behalf of his boss. After Musk was sued by a man he had called a "pedo guy," Birchall hired a private investigator, at Musk's behest, to dig up dirt on the man; it failed spectacularly.
Insider talked with three of Birchall's former colleagues from Merrill Lynch and two of his former neighbors from Stevenson Ranch, an affluent suburb of Los Angeles. They laughed when asked what they thought of him working for the impulsive and unpredictable Tesla founder.
"Jared's the most straightlaced person you'll ever meet," said one of the former colleagues.
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