How workaholic Elon Musk is

The billionaire works more than 120 hours a week, takes only 2-3 days off a year, and brings a pillow to the company to sleep under his desk.

Billionaire Elon Musk is a notorious workaholic and has spoken about it often. In recent weeks, he has continued to talk about his long work hours and rare vacations. He has also called people who prefer to work from home “living in a fantasy world .”

Since starting his business 30 years ago, the billionaire has embraced Silicon Valley culture, including working late into the night at the office. The billionaire's public talk of sacrifice has helped him create a demanding culture at the companies he runs, including Tesla and SpaceX.

He is now trying this approach with Twitter to restructure the company and its workforce, an effort he describes as "quite painful."

His “live at work” ethos is at odds with the new generation of workers’ desire to work remotely. Musk’s approach also raises the question of how best to motivate employees: Give them flexible hours to balance their work-life? Or push them by working yourself crazy and expecting them to do the same?

Elon Musk at the opening ceremony of Tesla's factory in Berlin (Germany) in 2022. Photo: Zuma Press — Elon Musk at the opening ceremony of Tesla's factory in Berlin (Germany) in 2022. Photo: *Zuma Press*

When asked about how he manages his workload at a Wall Street Journal conference in May, Musk said he tries to divide his time between companies each day. Tuesdays, for example, are Tesla days. But he can end up working on Twitter. Musk said the Twitter purchase added more than 120 hours to his workweek.

“As you can imagine, my day is long and complicated,” Musk said.

A week earlier, Musk told CNBC that he only takes two or three days off a year. “I work seven days a week, but I don’t expect other people to do the same,” he said.

But he has signaled that he expects others to do nearly as well. Early in his tenure at Twitter, Musk asked new employees if they were willing to work long hours and “high intensity,” a phrase he often uses at Tesla to boost morale.

Last month, Twitter employees filed a lawsuit against Musk for demanding that conference rooms be converted into “bedrooms” for exhausted employees to take a nap. He also wanted a bathroom installed next to his office “so I wouldn’t have to wake up security and walk halfway across the floor to use the bathroom in the middle of the night.”

In a recent interview with the BBC , Musk described the Twitter takeover as “painful,” similar to how he described the difficult times at Tesla before the electric carmaker became consistently profitable. In 2021, he described his experience at the car company as “two-thirds of the pain I’ve had in my entire life.”

As for his first startup, Zip2, Musk also showed an interest in stories of overcoming adversity. Jim Ambras, who was vice president of product development for Zip2, still remembers Musk expressing admiration for Sumner Redstone and how he overcame difficulties to become a media tycoon.

In 1979, at age 55, Redstone suffered severe burns to his hands in a hotel fire. However, this did not stop him from building a media empire that included the CBS television network and Paramount Pictures.

“He likes people who do really difficult things,” Ambras said.

Musk is famous for praising people who are willing to sacrifice everything. He expressed admiration for Chinese workers last year at a Financial Times forum. “They work until 3 a.m. They don’t even leave the factory, while Americans just try to avoid going to work,” he said.

Musk’s sleeping habits also speak to the challenges he faces. In a 2018 interview with the WSJ , when Tesla’s factory was struggling with Model 3 production, Musk kept a pillow next to him. He said he slept under his desk. “I haven’t left the factory in three days. If you see me sloppy, that’s why,” he said.

During that same period, Musk gave a CBS reporter a tour of the factory and pointed to the sofa where he slept. “It was horrible,” he said. Musk also scheduled a 3 a.m. phone interview with the New York Times .

“I slept on the floor because I couldn’t go across the street and get a hotel,” he later explained to Bloomberg Businessweek . “I wanted to make myself feel worse than anyone else in the company. When they were feeling pain, I wanted to make myself feel worse.”

Ha Thu (according to WSJ)

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