Gross, 69, speaking in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Trish Regan Thursday, said El-Erian’s departure is still a mystery for him and a disappointment for the Newport Beach, California-based firm, which manages the world’s biggest bond fund. He said he may have been premature in anointing El- Erian as his sole successor.

“He simply said he was not the man to take the company forward,” Gross, who manages the $232 billion Total Return Fund, said in the interview. “I would say, ‘Come on, Mohamed, tell us why’.”

The co-founder of Pimco is challenging El-Erian to speak up as he seeks to counter media reports that have painted a picture of Gross as an autocratic boss. El-Erian, who was also co-chief investment officer along with Gross, said Jan. 21 he would leave Pimco in mid-March, and his departure was followed by reports of tension between the two men. Gross lashed out at El-Erian, 55, in a June meeting as performance at his biggest fund stumbled and withdrawals continued, two people familiar with the matter said this year.

Reports of Gross as a dictator have come from former Pimco employees who have an ax to grind, the fund manager said. While he hasn’t been as inclusive and open to discussion as he could have been, he’s said he’s done things correctly to get assets at Pimco to about $2 trillion.

El-Erian Agreement

In an internal memo to employees in January, El-Erian said he was looking forward to something different and had no plans as of then. El-Erian didn’t return a request for comment.

Gross reiterated during the interview that he will be at Pimco for a long time and looks to Dan Fuss, the 80-year-old bond manager at Loomis Sayles & Co., as a role model. When he does retire, one of the six deputy CIOs named after El-Erian’s exit could be a potential heir, Gross said.

Gross said he had been asking himself in the past months whether the picture painted of him was true, and whether the image he has of himself was wrong. For the most part, he concluded, it was not.

“I look in the mirror, you know, and I like my hair. It’s nice and thick,” Gross said. “But can it be changed, can it be a different style, can it be trimmed at a certain level? Of course it can, and that’s what I’m trying to do.”