Elon Musk has said on record that the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) effort is “a scam” that has been “weaponized by fake Social Justice Warriors.”

Had we been back in the early 2000s, he would have been right. At the time, Dell’s ESG plan was to plant one tree for each compliance sale. Institutions that carried out ecotourism-based social justice programs were infamous for supporting those who paid them and punished them, with little effect on real sustainability.

But that was then, and now companies like Dell, HP and Lenovo report billions of dollars in additional sales due to actual ESG efforts. These efforts are having a significant impact on the amount of waste that is thrown back into the environment.

What I find ironic is that two CEOs Musk, whose Tesla and Hyperloop efforts benefit from the world’s focus on sustainability, seem to be anti-sustainability, while Michael Dell, where ESG is a natural fit for his company. Sales is not the driver, protection of the planet is everything.

Let’s compare these two CEOs’ focus on sustainability this week, and we’ll close out with our new favorite part of Office 365, Microsoft Designer, the DAL-E2-focused, AI-powered solution that’s my product of the week.

Tech’s ESG focus lacks irony

Last week, Dell held an after-dell Technologies World event to address any questions the press and analyst communities might have.

Dell was recently ranked the most preferred workspace, followed by neither Apple, nor Amazon, nor Facebook — all of which didn’t even make the rankings, and one of which is experiencing a massive increase in union activity. Amazon and Facebook are newer than Dell, and more popular with Apple users, and yet those three are anything but employee-friendly, especially after the pandemic.

It’s also fascinating that none of Elon Musk’s various companies made that list, but again Musk has a reputation for treating employees poorly. During the pandemic, he resisted safety directives from California and has since moved his headquarters to Texas, which comes down to California in employee care and sustainability efforts. Musk clearly has his priorities, and he puts employee care and consistency down to where most big tech companies do.

Now it Not there Ironically, tech companies are all about metrics, and they measure almost everything. Dell has been particularly aggressive in implementing metrics over the years and reflecting what was important to stakeholders (employees, customers, partners, investors) and driving policies that would benefit them.

Why is Musk’s lack of ESG focus ironic?

Hyperloop, and Tesla in particular, has a close relationship with sustainability because governments’ focus on eliminating fossil fuel use and improving sustainability has created huge opportunities for electric car sales and for people at large like the Hyperloop. Justification has been created.

Conventional wisdom would suggest that, even if this isn’t real, Musk will be a huge supporter of ESG efforts as he supports the approval of projects like the Hyperloop and the sale of electric cars. Furthermore, with those particularly interested in electric cars, buyers are big believers in the “S” of sustainability and are more likely to invest in solar power, as with Tesla’s Solar City subsidiary.

When the first truly next-generation electric cars hit the market in 2024, Tesla will face unprecedented competition. Buyers will not only have a wider choice of electric vehicles, but will also choose the companies they support. Given their interest in sustainability, they are more likely to choose a green company.

Starting with BMW, a firm that has emerged as the most technology-forward in the car industry, many companies are already greener than Tesla. To be clear, Tesla should lead on ESG, and instead, it lags miserably in this practice, suggesting Tesla buyers should choose a greener brand regardless of sustainability.

This year, Musk’s Twitter move has hurt Tesla stock, and Musk’s ways of dealing with employees who view his actions as negative, setting the bar for employee care and food, not to mention good governance We do.

In contrast, companies like Dell not only promote negative feedback but collect and use it to make better future decisions. Removing people who point out your mistakes usually ends badly because it destroys employee trust and support, even if the criticism is false, which was not the case with SpaceX.

wrapping up

What I find surprising is that both Michael Dell and Elon Musk are on record for believing climate change to be real and to protect mankind as one of the most important things to fight for. It’s just that Dell has moved aggressively to address the challenge by reducing consumption, assuring green energy sources, and building deeper sustainability projects like the Concept Luna.

Conversely, Musk thinks it shouldn’t be a priority for companies, even though they would benefit more from Dell because of subsidies and incentives related to their firms and their products.

I guess it comes down to how both men approach their jobs. Michael Dell takes his position seriously, is very focused, and judges on the data surrounding everything Dell Technologies does. Musk, by contrast, seems to be making decisions based on the moment and his gut, which hasn’t been working out well for him or his companies lately and, as I see it, bases his position on ESG. is formed.

Nothing makes Dell Technologies compete with Musk’s companies, and either can be a customer of the other. But as a provider, Tesla couldn’t comply with Dell’s ESG-focused supply network, while the ability to massively cut Dell’s operating costs should be visible to Musk’s companies.

In short, Dell’s focus and support for ESG is making the company more successful, while Musk’s opposite position only reinforces the idea that he has become a liability to his firms. If you are watching “House of the Dragon”, you are witnessing the death of a dynasty because of a lie that no one believes. The same problem is with Tesla’s stability. Once the true competition is revealed, I suspect it will be better for that firm than the young princess with a wandering eye in “House of the Dragon.”

DALL-E 2 . with Microsoft Designer

One of the biggest problems for many of us is finding a suitable open-source picture or figuring out how to pay for an image that is not in the public domain.

Many of us create our own web pages or try to create illustrations to go with a paper or powerpoint presentation. Often, the result is useless. When I was working for large companies, executives with access to graphic designers were often considered more competent than others who didn’t, regardless of the quality of their work.

OpenAI’s DALL-E, now in its second generation, creates images from your related text. You describe what you want, and DALL-E makes it. Last week at Microsoft Ignite, Satya Nadella announced that DALL-E 2 would be embedded in a new addition to Office 365 called Microsoft Designer.

The tool uses a combination of text-to-image AI technology and nested menus to help you quickly create an image, presentation page, or professional-looking ad in a fraction of the time it takes a graphics designer to spin up So to receive.

This kind of solution has been my dream since childhood. I can imagine and describe a picture I want to make, but even though my mother and first stepmother were artists, I still can’t make a picture to save my life.

Sadly Microsoft Designer isn’t available yet, although I signed up to be an early user here. I hope the designer sets the tone for AI updates on other Microsoft products.

Imagine that your PC writes a paper based on your outline or Excel creates a spreadsheet template or form based on the details of what you want. I expect the new “killer feature” in Office to do most of the heavy lifting for the platform once you figure out what you want.

Granted, many people struggle with how to communicate what they want. Therefore, learning Boolean logic for searching the web, building up your ability to make precise descriptions of what you want, will be an important future skill for success.

Finally, Microsoft Designer with DALL-E 2 was my favorite announcement during Microsoft Ignite last week, and it’s my product of the week.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ECT News Network.