Musk was photographed holding the book at a conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, in 2015, a year before Birchall was hired to oversee the family office. Musk stated in 2019 that Excession was staffed by "basically two individuals." The identity of the second individual remains unknown.
Jared Birchall has worked for Elon Musk since 2016, having been recruited from Morgan Stanley. Now he is one of the main figures behind the scenes as the $44 billion Twitter sale goes through.