Elon Musk and Satya Nadella are two of the most important figures in the world of technology today. Nadella, as you already know, has been the CEO of Microsoft since February 2014, and as for Musk, he runs (directly or indirectly) Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter and more. So we find their names on many lists of the most influential people in their particular fields, but this is probably one of the few points on which they agree.

Elon Musk is one of the richest people in the world, which allowed him to found and acquire companies to develop those activities that interested him and in which he believed he could contribute something new to what already existed. And the truth is that in this sense he has signed up to more than one success, with Tesla and SpaceX being the main exponents. However, on the other hand, he also showed many signs of being a rather disastrous manager (the loss of the value of Twitter or the constant postponement of promises that he throws to the wind are good examples of this) and a very unreflective person., given to talk more than he should.

Satya Nadella has a much more discreet profile. He’s not unknown, of course, but he has much less public projection than Musk. After working at Sun Microsystems, he joined Microsoft as an employee in 1992, so he developed practically his entire career in the same company, from the beginning in responsible positions (his first positions were vice president of the business division and vice president of research and development of the online services division). He became the CEO of Microsoft after the departure of Steve Ballmer.

They are so different that in a survey conducted by Fortune Elon Musk was selected as the most overrated CEO, while Satya Nadella was selected as the most underrated. And to give more value to this result, it is important to clarify that the survey was conducted exclusively among CEOs, so this assessment was made by people with similar responsibilities, with which I admit that I completely agree.

Action by Elon Musk negatively affected the valuation of their companieswhile Nadel managed to acquire Microsoft exceeds three trillion in market capitalization (a milestone recently achieved by Apple as well) and that’s even more valuable considering that Microsoft’s situation under Ballmer’s leadership has not been the best it could have been. As I said, Musk has also had great achievements, it would be foolish to deny that, but it is also indisputable that the regularity, and probably his personal discretion, has made Nadella much better regarded by his peers.

Two completely different styles, two philosophies that represent schools that we could almost call opposite. Which one would you choose?

Images: US Air Force / Microsoft / Richard Morgenstein