Gwynne Shotwell seems to be doing that just fine. Surely she's not unique in the world - though I do agree that COOs that meet Elon's bar are probably extremely rare.
From what I've read she is not afraid to confront him on different issues. She is as passionate about SpaceX as he is.
Yeah - she was also a first-year employee, SpaceX's eleventh overall. She's got the seniority and the clear long-term established loyalty to be able to say "no", something a newly-minted Tesla COO wouldn't necessarily have.
Go on. These are the random insights that we love hn for.