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"Musk works about 100 hours per week at the electric carmaker" 7 / 100 = 14.3 hours a day. Or 100 / 5 = 20 hours a day. Does he not require food then? Or any n

"Musk works about 100 hours per week at the electric carmaker" 7 / 100 = 14.3 hours a day. Or 100 / 5 = 20 hours a day. Does he not require food then? Or any non-work activities? Talk about hyperbole.

neverminder 9y ago
So then how many hours does he spend with SpaceX?
- dozzie 9y ago
  Another 80 per week. He just works quite long weeks.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    With 168 hours per week that would require some rather advanced magic.
    - dozzie 9y ago
      Or a company called Wells that produces time machines, like Tesla produces cars and batteries.
    - Cthulhu_ 9y ago
      The Boring Company's real goal is to drill a black hole so Musk can work from a time dilation singularity.
- lampenrad 9y ago
  Close to another 100!: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/elon-musk-goals/ https://www.bloomberg.com/features/elon-musk-goals/ The proportion of time Musk devotes to each company is derived from a description he gave at Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting in June 2017. "The Boring Company is maybe 2 percent of my time, Neuralink 3-5 percent, Open AI another couple percent,” Musk said. The rest is split almost evenly between Tesla and SpaceX, he said, but “slightly more Tesla—it’s like a drama magnet."
MarkEthan 9y ago
I'd imagine he has an impressively comprehensive team around him ensuring he doesn't need to focus on anything other than his work. That said, working over 14 hours per day 7 days a week is implausible to me. Maybe in short bursts but I doubt he does that for any stretch of time. The Elon Musk PR machine & cult of public enthusiasm is a massive business asset. When you're in the business of selling dreams to investors and employees pushing themselves to the limit this type of 'fact' is going to get thrown around.
- mistermann 9y ago
  Bill Gates was reputed to work that much as well, and I don't think anyone disputed it either.
  - dilemma 9y ago
    self-reported and therefore not reliable.
    - Shivetya 9y ago
      some executives never stop working, even when not on site they consider time spent solving problems in their head or sitting at their computer/tablet/etc as work. myself I have been around some six to six executives who even at parties talk shop. hell we used to joke that when one went on vacation it only made his emails longer
      - dilemma 9y ago
        Yes, I'm sure they do and I would too but that is not the vernacular "working".
- Gustomaximus 9y ago
  'Work' can include things like travel and lunches. Both of which can be downtime but are classed as 'work'. Overall its hard to believe considering he also has Space x and other investments and im suresomeone is streching the truth. But I dont doubt the guy lives and breaths his work.
joshribakoff 9y ago
I often start at 7am and go until 10pm. My girlfriend makes me food and brings my caffeine. I have no time for "non work activities"though. I'll be in bed watching Netflix but really working on my laptop. Even when I have to goto the grocery store my mind is always on work. Being a remote employee, the line is blurred. If I'm out and about but all I can do is daydream about a new algorithm, I consider that working.
- pkhamre 9y ago
  Is it a life you enjoy living? I'm just curious :)
  - thanksgiving 9y ago
    I mean technically if you are available to answer phone calls or emails, I think we should consider you are "working". I mean it is ridiculous to pay you by the hour at that point but if I didn't have to pay you by the hour, that's the criteria I'd use. I think I read somewhere that somewhere in France or Germany some city or some department/province said you can't require your employees to promptly respond to emails outside of their work hours (I imagine they don't have "at-will" employment).
- cr1895 9y ago
  I mean this without any intention of belittling or suggestion that you should do otherwise, but why? Not that you need justify anything to me, of course. It's so fundamentally opposite to my experience, and I'm curious about what's driving you to work like this.
  - dkersten 9y ago
    In my personaly anecdotal experience, it eventulally leads to burnout, health and relationship problems. After doing two startups and working way too much for way too little, I now strongly believe in a healthy work-life balance. Hell, I’m looking at reducing my worked hours (for less pay) because I now value my non-work free time much much more than I did before. But.. to each thir own, I suppose.
dilemma 9y ago
It's not true. Easy as that.
crummy 9y ago
A friend who works at Tesla said he has (had?) a bed in his office. So maybe he's counting the hours spent there, too?
alexcnwy 9y ago
I doubt all that time is 100% focus - that number probably includes business lunches, driving to PR gigs (during which he might read something work related), etc. If you count all that stuff then the average person is probably working more than 8 hours too.
kensai 9y ago
He also flies... :-/ Elon is cool and all, but his fanboys are making the whole thing really ridiculous. Btw, it might even be true, but can we falsify it? Exactly as in religion (to give it in Karl Popper's terms).
keymone 9y ago
his job there is to think, talk and send emails. that's doable 16 hours a day (minus some disruptions) for average person and i don't think Elon is average.
throw2016 9y ago
The ability to work uninterrupted is a privilege. First time sink is family, spouses, partners, kids, friends and social obligations. Take 2 hours minimum. Organizing food and eating - another 2 hours. If cooking add an hour to that so 3 hours for food. For cleaning and basic home maintenance - minimum 1 hour. Personal hygiene - add an hour so total 2 hours. Commuting if necessary - 1 hour minimum. Add 8 hours or let's be harder and take 6 hours for sleep. That's a total of 14 hours that can't be negotiated leaving you with 10 hours for work. Given the brain will not operate at that stretch you need distraction, so web, tv, books, games, movies - another 2-3 hours. So 7-8 hours seems to the the maximum any human being can work. If you don't have family and friends and someone takes care of food and maintenance you can get an additional 4 hours. So anything beyond 10-12 hours seems physically impossible, and this is with 6 hours sleep, no family and all responsibilities taken care of.
- jsjohnst 9y ago
  The vast majority of what you mention is wrong for me, and I'm not remotely of the paygrade of someone like Elon Musk. If you think Elon Musk spends 2-3 hours per day on eating, then I'm not sure what I can say further.
  - throw2016 9y ago
    I doubt food magically appears on your plate? You seem to have left out the 'Organizing food' part of the eating entry above which includes the time required to get the food. You either have to source food from markets and cook it, have it cooked, eat at a restaurant or order out, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. All this takes time as does time to actually eat the food. If you have a family multiply the time required. If you can do all the above in less than 3 hours it's worth sharing.
    - DanBC 9y ago
      Very rich people don't need to do any of that. They hire kitchen staff who'll do everything but eat the food.
tomw2005 9y ago
I recently analysed a load of my time tracking data.[1] I only managed to get up to 11h37m per day when I'm travelling for work. That includes flights as 'work'. It does seem pretty unlikely unless he's counting Networking/social type events in the evenings and stuff. [1] https://www.tinkertailorsoldiersponge.com/toggl https://www.tinkertailorsoldiersponge.com/toggl
Pica_soO 9y ago
The lights in comrade muskovices office never go out. He is watching out for us, as we sleep! I sometimes wonder, whether such a hyped personality could be completely synthesized. Just a actor and a really good propaganda show. And if all those morons going along for the ride, would learn from that being revealed.

neverminder 9y ago

So then how many hours does he spend with SpaceX?

dozzie 9y ago
Another 80 per week. He just works quite long weeks.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  With 168 hours per week that would require some rather advanced magic.
  - dozzie 9y ago
    Or a company called Wells that produces time machines, like Tesla produces cars and batteries.
  - Cthulhu_ 9y ago
    The Boring Company's real goal is to drill a black hole so Musk can work from a time dilation singularity.
lampenrad 9y ago
Close to another 100!: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/elon-musk-goals/ https://www.bloomberg.com/features/elon-musk-goals/ The proportion of time Musk devotes to each company is derived from a description he gave at Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting in June 2017. "The Boring Company is maybe 2 percent of my time, Neuralink 3-5 percent, Open AI another couple percent,” Musk said. The rest is split almost evenly between Tesla and SpaceX, he said, but “slightly more Tesla—it’s like a drama magnet."

MarkEthan 9y ago

I'd imagine he has an impressively comprehensive team around him ensuring he doesn't need to focus on anything other than his work. That said, working over 14 hours per day 7 days a week is implausible to me. Maybe in short bursts but I doubt he does that for any stretch of time. The Elon Musk PR machine & cult of public enthusiasm is a massive business asset. When you're in the business of selling dreams to investors and employees pushing themselves to the limit this type of 'fact' is going to get thrown around.

mistermann 9y ago
Bill Gates was reputed to work that much as well, and I don't think anyone disputed it either.
- dilemma 9y ago
  self-reported and therefore not reliable.
  - Shivetya 9y ago
    some executives never stop working, even when not on site they consider time spent solving problems in their head or sitting at their computer/tablet/etc as work. myself I have been around some six to six executives who even at parties talk shop. hell we used to joke that when one went on vacation it only made his emails longer
    - dilemma 9y ago
      Yes, I'm sure they do and I would too but that is not the vernacular "working".
Gustomaximus 9y ago
'Work' can include things like travel and lunches. Both of which can be downtime but are classed as 'work'. Overall its hard to believe considering he also has Space x and other investments and im suresomeone is streching the truth. But I dont doubt the guy lives and breaths his work.

joshribakoff 9y ago

I often start at 7am and go until 10pm. My girlfriend makes me food and brings my caffeine. I have no time for "non work activities"though. I'll be in bed watching Netflix but really working on my laptop. Even when I have to goto the grocery store my mind is always on work. Being a remote employee, the line is blurred. If I'm out and about but all I can do is daydream about a new algorithm, I consider that working.

pkhamre 9y ago
Is it a life you enjoy living? I'm just curious :)
- thanksgiving 9y ago
  I mean technically if you are available to answer phone calls or emails, I think we should consider you are "working". I mean it is ridiculous to pay you by the hour at that point but if I didn't have to pay you by the hour, that's the criteria I'd use. I think I read somewhere that somewhere in France or Germany some city or some department/province said you can't require your employees to promptly respond to emails outside of their work hours (I imagine they don't have "at-will" employment).
cr1895 9y ago
I mean this without any intention of belittling or suggestion that you should do otherwise, but why? Not that you need justify anything to me, of course. It's so fundamentally opposite to my experience, and I'm curious about what's driving you to work like this.
- dkersten 9y ago
  In my personaly anecdotal experience, it eventulally leads to burnout, health and relationship problems. After doing two startups and working way too much for way too little, I now strongly believe in a healthy work-life balance. Hell, I’m looking at reducing my worked hours (for less pay) because I now value my non-work free time much much more than I did before. But.. to each thir own, I suppose.

dilemma 9y ago

It's not true. Easy as that.

crummy 9y ago

A friend who works at Tesla said he has (had?) a bed in his office. So maybe he's counting the hours spent there, too?

alexcnwy 9y ago

I doubt all that time is 100% focus - that number probably includes business lunches, driving to PR gigs (during which he might read something work related), etc. If you count all that stuff then the average person is probably working more than 8 hours too.

kensai 9y ago

He also flies... :-/ Elon is cool and all, but his fanboys are making the whole thing really ridiculous. Btw, it might even be true, but can we falsify it? Exactly as in religion (to give it in Karl Popper's terms).

keymone 9y ago

his job there is to think, talk and send emails. that's doable 16 hours a day (minus some disruptions) for average person and i don't think Elon is average.

throw2016 9y ago

The ability to work uninterrupted is a privilege. First time sink is family, spouses, partners, kids, friends and social obligations. Take 2 hours minimum. Organizing food and eating - another 2 hours. If cooking add an hour to that so 3 hours for food. For cleaning and basic home maintenance - minimum 1 hour. Personal hygiene - add an hour so total 2 hours. Commuting if necessary - 1 hour minimum. Add 8 hours or let's be harder and take 6 hours for sleep. That's a total of 14 hours that can't be negotiated leaving you with 10 hours for work. Given the brain will not operate at that stretch you need distraction, so web, tv, books, games, movies - another 2-3 hours. So 7-8 hours seems to the the maximum any human being can work. If you don't have family and friends and someone takes care of food and maintenance you can get an additional 4 hours. So anything beyond 10-12 hours seems physically impossible, and this is with 6 hours sleep, no family and all responsibilities taken care of.

jsjohnst 9y ago
The vast majority of what you mention is wrong for me, and I'm not remotely of the paygrade of someone like Elon Musk. If you think Elon Musk spends 2-3 hours per day on eating, then I'm not sure what I can say further.
- throw2016 9y ago
  I doubt food magically appears on your plate? You seem to have left out the 'Organizing food' part of the eating entry above which includes the time required to get the food. You either have to source food from markets and cook it, have it cooked, eat at a restaurant or order out, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. All this takes time as does time to actually eat the food. If you have a family multiply the time required. If you can do all the above in less than 3 hours it's worth sharing.
  - DanBC 9y ago
    Very rich people don't need to do any of that. They hire kitchen staff who'll do everything but eat the food.

tomw2005 9y ago

I recently analysed a load of my time tracking data.[1] I only managed to get up to 11h37m per day when I'm travelling for work. That includes flights as 'work'. It does seem pretty unlikely unless he's counting Networking/social type events in the evenings and stuff. [1] https://www.tinkertailorsoldiersponge.com/toggl https://www.tinkertailorsoldiersponge.com/toggl

Pica_soO 9y ago

The lights in comrade muskovices office never go out. He is watching out for us, as we sleep! I sometimes wonder, whether such a hyped personality could be completely synthesized. Just a actor and a really good propaganda show. And if all those morons going along for the ride, would learn from that being revealed.