The small family office that manages the money of the world’s wealthiest individual and is assisting in the largest-ever single-person acquisition is cloaked in mystery.
Musk sealed a $44 billion deal to buy Twitter Inc on Monday, marking a watershed moment for one of the world’s most powerful public forums.
Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla Inc and SpaceX, announced in a regulatory filing last week that the social media firm should contact its family office about his potential takeover.
Yet little is known about the family office in Austin, Texas, that administers Musk’s assets. According to regulatory filings and legal records, the office is called Excession, and the guy who helped construct it is Jared Birchall, a former Morgan Stanley banker who has advised Musk on his relations with Wall Street for several years. According to court records, he also hired an investigator to look into a Musk critic whom Musk referred to as “pedo person” in 2018.
Birchall, who was born in 1974, was hired by Musk’s family office in 2016 after leaving Morgan Stanley. Birchall is also the CEO of Musk’s Neuralink brain chip company, a director of Musk’s Boring Company tunneling company, and a board member of Musk’s philanthropic private foundation.
Birchall was listed as the manager of Excession in business registration records with the Texas commissioner of public accounts as recently as 2021.
Requests for a response from Birchall and Musk were not returned.
According to Raphael Amit, a management professor at the Wharton School, Birchall’s various positions are unusual for a family office manager and demonstrate Musk’s trust in him.
“When you appoint someone to run the family office, you are expressing your confidence in him. And Elon wants to put it up such that he (Birchall) has complete control.”
Morgan Stanley led the financing package for Musk’s bid for Twitter and advised Musk on the successful transaction, bringing to close several years of mutually beneficial connections forged by Birchall.
Birchall messaged Musk the day after Musk tweeted in August 2018 that Goldman Sachs and Silver Lake would handle his ultimately unsuccessful attempt to take Tesla private.
“By far, they’ve been our most valuable personal resource. They supply you with the largest ($350M) of all the lines, and they’ve always delivered when we’ve asked for greater borrowing power or a lower rate “According to records revealed during a trial over Musk’s tweets indicating he was considering taking Tesla private, he wrote.
“That seems reasonable,” Musk said.
“Excession” is also the title of a science-fiction novel about artificial intelligence by Iain M. Banks, which Musk was photographed carrying at a conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, in 2015.
In 2019, Musk argued in a defamation trial in federal court in Los Angeles that the company was employed by “basically two individuals.” The identity of the second individual remains unknown.
According to industry sources, having a small group of employees manage a family office is not uncommon, while billionaire Jeff Bezos’ family office is thought to employ more than 100 people.
Excession’s holdings, the number of its assets, and the number of workers could not be learned because there is no statutory requirement for family offices to publicly declare their assets or important individuals.
Birchall, a graduate of Brigham Young University, began his career as a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs Group Inc in New York in 1999, according to his LinkedIn page. He then worked as a wealth manager for Merrill Lynch in Los Angeles for almost a decade.
According to Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) records, Merrill Lynch fired Birchall in 2010 for “behavior resulting in management’s loss of trust,” which includes “sending letters to a client without management consent.” Reporters were unable to get any information about Birchall’s dismissal, and neither FINRA nor Merrill Lynch responded to requests for comment.
Birchall started working as a wealth manager at Morgan Stanley less than a month afterward.
Birchall was well-liked at Morgan Stanley, according to a Morgan Stanley spokesperson, and he left on good terms.
Birchall’s responsibilities aren’t limited to finance.
In 2018, he hired a private investigator to dig into a British diver who opposed Musk’s plan to rescue a boys’ soccer team trapped in a cave using SpaceX’s mini-submarine.
Musk was sued for defamation after calling the diver a “pedo man” in a comment on Twitter. During the trial, it was revealed that Birchall, who went by the name James Brickhouse, hired a private investigator to look into the diver. In court, Birchall stated that he had an “instinct to defend Musk.”
The case was won by Musk.
“The concept of loyalty is extremely essential, especially in the family office,” said Amit of the Wharton School. “Because you’re privy to some of the most personal and private concerns that families face.”
