
Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year - tysone
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/business/elon-musk-interview-tesla.html
======
tomhoward
_But, he added, “if you have anyone who can do a better job, please let me
know. They can have the job. Is there someone who can do the job better? They
can have the reins right now.”_

I think this hits at the crux of the issue around the performance/behaviour of
Musk and other leaders of hugely ambitious companies.

And I think it highlights the importance of thinking about what kinds of
people it will take to lead the next generation of such companies, and how we
can identify and develop them.

I've never been any kind of Musk fanboy, and like most people I've looked on
at his recent behaviour with some combination of bemusement and astonishment.

But when I see the hate and vitriol heaped on him, I'm compelled to wonder
just what kind of alternative universe people are wishing for.

Do we actually want Tesla and SpaceX to fail?

Would we rather that Musk had just never founded Tesla and SpaceX, that the
world didn't have any companies doing what those companies are trying to do,
and that we were left to be content with the previous status quo in the
automotive and space industries?

If not, then it would surely be better for the conversation to be less about
how crazy or unstable or reckless Musk is, and more about how he and other
leaders of today and of the future can pursue their ambitious goals, but to do
so in a way that is responsible and balanced.

The alternative is not some as-yet-unknown-person-other-than-Musk doing the
same thing but doing it better.

The number of people who are capable of building and running companies like
these is vanishingly small and they will inevitably have extreme personality
traits - some positive and some negative.

My concern is not for Musk's feelings, but for the way society goes about
choosing, developing and critiquing the next generation of ambitious leaders,
of whom we'll need plenty more if the world's increasingly complex problems
are to be solved.

I should add that this applies whether we're talking about corporate leaders
or political/community leaders.

~~~
skrebbel
There's a hidden false dichotomy there: That Tesla and Space X couldn't exist
/ succeed without Musk working his employees and himself into a burnout. I'm
not sure that that is true. The same Musk with the same employees could've
perfectly well done these companies at a sane pace - maybe even without losing
speed in the grand scheme of things given that less stuff would've gone wrong.

~~~
tomhoward
_The same Musk with the same employees_

I think I agree with everything except that.

What I'm saying is we can't have everything that's positive about Telsa, but
completely discard Musk.

What we _should_ hope for is for the current version of Musk to become a
better version of Musk - say, one that can build a viable EV company and help
bring about a global transition away from combustion-powered transport, but
without the vile personal attacks, impulsive stock-price-affecting comments,
absurd PR stunts, overworked workforce etc.

I'm well aware that the world doesn't currently have clear answers as to how
people can make such profound changes to their personality, but I think it is
where more discussion and research needs to be in order for the world to find
and develop the leaders who can steer us through the big challenges.

~~~
fabizeid
Why does it have to be the current version of Musk to be a better version of
Musk? Why can't we consider that Musk or his type was instrumental to launch
Tesla but at this point a different person is better fit to grow it? Maybe
skills needed to sustain a company might be different than the skills needed
to launch it.

~~~
that_jojo
Completely just to play devil's advocate, here: When has a major innovative
company ever done _better_ after ousting a visionary but perhaps somewhat
toxic founder?

Maybe we could look at Uber, but it's too soon to tell. And The new management
there seems earnest, but I'm not sure they're looking so hot from an actual
business perspective.

~~~
billylindeman
General Motors. William durant vs Alfred Sloan.

But better is relative.

~~~
that_jojo
Oh shit, I like this one. Nice work.

------
Animats
_" Then he got in a Tesla Model S and drove himself to the airport. En route,
Mr. Musk typed his fateful message."_

Don't text while driving.

This going private thing is a strange idea. Sell Tesla to the _Saudi sovereign
wealth fund?_ The one dedicated to keeping oil a viable industry? Does he want
Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud as a boss? That makes no sense. Softbank might
make sense.

Part of Musk's problem seems to be "Only I can fix it". Tesla desperately
needs a chief operating officer. They have a VP of manufacturing, Gilbert
Passin, who's a car guy, but he does not seem to be in charge. He's not the
one living in the plant. There are people who have fixed broken production
lines. Musk is not one of them.

Tesla finally produced 5,000 Model 3 units a week for two weeks running.
That's encouraging. If they can sustain that rate for two months, and the
quality complaints don't go up, they have the line working. Profitability is
another matter. Tesla Fremont has a huge headcount for the output.

~~~
cepth
Saudi Arabia has the whole Vision 2030 plan in motion. The general thrust is
they want to diversify the country away from being a petrostate. The headline
numbers for state investment in renewables are nothing to scoff at:
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-16/saudi-
ara...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-16/saudi-arabia-plans-
up-to-7-billion-of-renewables-this-year)

I can’t find the link right now, but Bloomberg did a short ~30 minute
documentary 4-5 years ago on Saudi efforts to build a biofuel research center.

I’d also posit that now is the ideal time to take money from the Saudis, if
there ever was a time. The Aramco IPO is going nowhere fast, so a key pillar
of Vision 2030 is dead in the water.

I’d humbly suggest that you read up on the Saudi youth bulge. Every Saudi
receives an annual Alaska-style oil dividend. A huge portion of the youth
population is unemployed. The thousands of US dollars paid out to each idle
youth is not sustainable long-run, even if oil prices were to increase.

Assuming this Saudi deal is some kind of preferred stock or hybrid equity-debt
structure, Tesla can probably get the most favorable terms possible from the
Saudis because they are somewhat desperate at this point.

~~~
compcoffee
> _Saudi Arabia has the whole Vision 2030 plan in motion. The general thrust
> is they want to diversify the country away from being a petrostate._

So the short-sellers are Big Oil shills, but selling out to the Saudis is okay
(if you ignore human rights atrocities and all the oil)?

~~~
clankfan
Ethics? Do you think Tesla is bad for selling cars to China? No country has
intact ethics, your comment is ridiculous. Sa is one of the biggest and most
promising investors in renewables _precisely_ because of their oil background.
Oil is going to implode soon and they know it. Their economy and foreign
policy rely heavily on oil, so they are carrying out a transition away from it
now rather than wait. So yes, "selling out" to them is more than ok -- it's
brilliant.

------
_bxg1
This was about what I'd gathered.

He's been reckless and made some huge errors in judgement over the past year,
but despite it all I hope he succeeds. I don't think he's a hero or a saint
like some people do, but his endeavors are having a very real and tangible
positive effect on civilization.

Most chiefly, as bad as the climate change situation looks right now, it would
be so much worse without the insane amount of 1) change in the public's and
the auto industry's perception of electric cars, and 2) innovation in battery
technology (especially applied to solar arrays), which Tesla has accomplished.
Seriously. We would have zero chance without those two hills having been
crossed.

Character flaws aside, Musk is the only billionaire alive (or even in recent
memory) whose business ventures are netting any actual positive effect on
society whatsoever. Heck, he might be the only one _not_ having a seriously
_detrimental_ effect on society right now. You don't have to like him to
acknowledge that.

~~~
archagon
> _Character flaws aside, Musk is the only billionaire alive (or even in
> recent memory) whose business ventures are netting any actual positive
> effect on society whatsoever._

Wait, what? How can you possibly justify that?

> _Heck, he might be the only one not having a seriously detrimental effect on
> society right now. You don 't have to like him to acknowledge that._

What about all those recent self-driving crashes? At best, they're poisoning
the well for sensible self-driving legislation. At worst, they're killing
people for no reason other than corporate hubris and greed. Then there's the
matter of creepy corporate policing, such as the remote lockouts whenever
somebody tries to examine the firmware, or the humiliating public accident
reports whenever something goes wrong with one of the cars, or the forced
corralling of all self-driving taxi business into a Tesla-exclusive service in
the future.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _What about all those recent self-driving crashes?_

What about Apollo 1? There is a difference between a civilian and military
death. But they are both pursuing progress. One can’t discount the costs
without any concept of the potential benefits.

~~~
_bxg1
I wouldn't include the self-driving tech among the world-changing progress.
Climate change is a pressing disaster for our whole species; self-driving cars
are not urgent enough to be pursued with the same intensity, and are dangerous
enough to deserve more rigour.

~~~
njarboe
Automobiles cause over 1,000,000 deaths globally per year. Not to mention the
number of human hours used to drive. Elimination of the need for people to
drive and reducing auto deaths by, say 95%, I think would be world-changing.

What ratio of lives saved to extra deaths while creating self-driving tech
would you accept?

~~~
bumholio
You know the answer to that: zero. In the court of public opinion, existing
risks are internalized and heavily discounted while new risks are always
perceived as gargantuan no matter how small.

It's basic human psychology, it's why some people prefer to drive long
distances instead of flying, and why a flu pandemic is conducive to mass
hysteria, while the obesity and diabetes prevalence, orders of magnitude more
deadly, barely appears on the radar.

~~~
batteryhorse
Plus there's no way I'm trusting my life to some idiot programmer.

------
propter_hoc
The article notes allegations that the Board is concerned that Mr. Musk has
been taking Ambien as a sleeping aid, but instead of sleeping, has been
posting bizarre tirades on Twitter. I actually have a number of American*
friends who take Ambien frequently with the intent that it be a sleeping aid.
However, they all commonly do exactly what Mr. Musk may be doing: failing to
sleep after taking their Ambien, and instead staying up late and acting in a
crazy manner, and then failing to remember what they did in the morning.

How can it be that this drug is prescribed so often? It is pretty clearly a
dangerously strong hallucinogen. Maybe it is warranted in really bad insomnia
cases, but the risks seem to outweigh the benefits here. Would love to hear
any perspectives from users or doctors here.

* I am in Canada, and while this may just be sampling error, I know many more Canadians than Americans, but don't know anyone here who to my knowledge has been prescribed Ambien for sleep.

~~~
elicash
The little sleep he IS getting isn't even quality. From the author of Why We
Sleep:

> Unfortunately, the current set or classes of sleeping pills that we have do
> not produce naturalistic sleep. So they are all a broad set of chemicals
> that we call the sedative hypnotics. And sedation is not sleep. It's very
> different. It doesn't give you the restorative natural benefits of sleep.

[https://www.npr.org/2018/07/20/630792401/sleep-scientist-
war...](https://www.npr.org/2018/07/20/630792401/sleep-scientist-warns-
against-walking-through-life-in-an-underslept-state)

~~~
taternuts
It's a whole lot better than nothing, that's for sure.

~~~
elicash
It's not Ambien or nothing for most people. This is a false choice and a
dangerous way of framing it. Cognitive therapy for insomnia is just as
effective in short-term and, unlike sedatives, do not cause sleep to be worse
in the future.

[http://www.sleepeducation.org/treatment-therapy/cognitive-
be...](http://www.sleepeducation.org/treatment-therapy/cognitive-behavioral-
therapy)

------
kamaal
>>He said he had been working up to 120 hours a week recently

>>Mr. Musk said he had not taken time off of more than a week since 2001

>>There were times when I didn’t leave the factory for three or four days —
days when I didn’t go outside

>>This has really come at the expense of seeing my kids. And seeing friends.

>>All night — no friends, nothing

>>But from a personal pain standpoint, the worst is yet to come.

>>It is often a choice of no sleep or Ambien

These are dangerous levels of stress. The work alone even without all that big
company, big expectation pressure can wear you down.

I can only imagine what he must be going through. You don't have rest or
sleep, on top of it there is a perennial pressure of saving a big company, and
you are also chasing your world altering plans. I guess almost any minor
irritation, let alone some thing like the being reminded of short sellers of
the impending doom, could trigger a uncontrollable response.

I've been there, you just look for any hint of hope, and you feel like lashing
out at any thing that is interfering in the path to your cause. You are
irritated all the time. Criticism, even genuine largely looks like conspiracy.
And you mark any one standing in your way as a enemy.

I'm a nobody to offer advice. But it looks some one needs to sit him down, may
be even family, and ask him to relax. Before some big failure happens and some
more serious mental issue hits him in the face, and it forces him to hurt
himself.

~~~
speedplane
You're thinking about it wrong. Working 120 hours a week at a normal job is
torture. Working 120 hours at something you love is just living.

The 120 hour/week estimates are likely over-inflated folk-lore, but still,
when you have a passion for something and care, it's not work, you're just
living your life the way you want to.

Many say Elon long work-weeks are super-human, they're not. He's just loves
doing what he's doing, so why do anything else.

~~~
mikekchar
I used to work those kinds of hours when I was young. 16 hours a day during
the week and 8 hours a day on the weekend. No days off. I enjoyed it.

It's tiring, though. As I get older (50 now), I can't do it any more. I still
over work -- because I _really_ like working. A while ago I ended up in the
hospital from what seems to have been a panic attack (that lasted a week...)
It appears that panic attacks can _really_ feel like heart attacks...

Stress is one of those weird things. It can fuel you, but at least in my
experience, there is still a cost. If you're getting to the point where you
are suffering stress related illness (like not being able to sleep), then
you've probably gone too far into the red zone. It's important to find
activities where you don't always have to be "on".

For some people like me, that's hard, but at least now I realise I have a
choice between that and death. Hard challenges are fun, and I don't really
fancy the death option at the moment ;-)

~~~
whamlastxmas
What do you like about working? I'm really struggling to find something in
life that I consider productive that I enjoy doing.

~~~
speedplane
The first step is to figure out what you like doing, regardless of whether
it’s productive. The second step is to just do it all the time. Over time
opportunities will pop up.

~~~
mikekchar
My dad was a chemistry professor. He used to say that he could have done any
job, but the idea of being a "scientist" really excited him when he was young.
From an early age, I think I kind of held on to the idea that you don't change
who you are based on the title of a job. You can do any job, but you are still
you.

I worked as a programmer all through school (working for computer services at
the university, or for various labs). When I graduated, I ended up travelling
a bit and worked doing odd jobs at a travel tour company in London. If you've
ever seen the movie "The Secret of My Success" with Michael J Fox, then this
is pretty much what happened to me.

I got stuck in the mail room one day and was appalled at the ridiculous
process they had. When a fax (or more commonly in those days, teletype) came
in, you had to route it to the director of the department. That person read
the message and sent it back to the mail room. Then you sent it to the manager
of the department. That person read it and sent it back to the mail room.
After about 3-4 rounds of that, it would get to the person who actually needed
to read it. One day we got a message from a hotel that there was a problem and
that they couldn't accommodate the bus that was coming in -- in 3 hours. So I
photocopied the teletype, sent the original to the director and the copy to
the person who could actually solve the problem. Later the managing director
came down from on high (literally) and thanked me for helping. It became my
job to read all the incoming mail and make sure that the appropriate person
got mail as soon as possible.

You should have seen the backlash in the company. People were incensed that
this young kid was reading all of the mail and was making decisions about how
to route important information. Someone even told me, "I've been working here
10 years and I've never even _seen_ the MD." \-- and not in a friendly way.
But after that point the MD loved me and there was nothing they could do.

Another day, they asked me to wander up to the finance department to help with
year end filing. Usually it took them 2 weeks to file all of the tax related
papers for the year (because everyone was too lazy to file them as they came
in :-P). Of course, I'd just spent 4 years learning every stupid algorithm on
earth (the disadvantage of going to a school with a crap CS program) and I
_knew_ sorting :-). So I sorted the files. I took over a whole room and
started putting papers in seemingly random order. People came up and asked,
"Why are you doing it like that?" and I replied, "I don't know -- that's just
the way you do it". It was sorted in 2 hours. The finance team thought I was a
freaking genius and soon I found myself moved up from the basement to the
fourth floor (2 from the top!). I refused to wear a suit, but the MD loved me
anyway (and mostly everyone else hated me).

So I was working in finance and also reading everybody's mail when I noticed
that the computer department (such as it was) was having very interesting
conversations over internal mail. Long story short, they were embezzling money
and essentially forming a plan to hold the company hostage so that they could
spin off a separate company to perform services for them.

So I sat down and started writing up a plan to replace their ridiculous system
with something that would actually work (and include a system to email faxes
and teletypes to people... I mean, come on). Just basically doodling around
with it in my spare time. Eventually I had the plan ready and was about to
talk to the MD when...

I decided that I'd had enough of business :-) I went back to Canada and farted
around in school for another year. Never did give the MD my report or tell
anybody about the computer division's plot. The company is still in business
something like 30 years later (and I think doing fairly well), so I guess it
was fine. But the key is that it just didn't matter what my "job" was.

As you say, "Over time opportunities will pop up". Maybe in not such a
ridiculous fashion as my experience, but they do. I've worked as a programmer
for decades, but I also once quit my job, moved to Japan and taught English in
a high school for 5 years. That job was also fun. There are hidden depths to
_anything_ you can do. Just keep in mind that there are some organisations and
people who will just treat you like crap all the time, so avoid them. Other
than that, you're as free as you want to be.

My favourite quote from Dr. Who was when someone asked who he was working for
and he replied, "Work for? I don't work for anyone. I'm just having fun." I
try to treat all of my jobs like that. I suppose I technically work for
someone, but my attitude is that if I occupy myself with interesting things
that benefit my boss, then nobody (important) will complain.

~~~
whamlastxmas
This is a cool story, thanks for sharing. What do you find motivates you
throughout the different types of work that you do? Do you just feel
intrinsically motivated to be busy and do stuff?

------
danso
I haven't been the biggest Musk fan but this profile did evoke sympathy from
me, and felt far more honest than the persona he conveys via Twitter. I don't
get how the board could for so long be OK knowing that Musk is as he is, and
not putting a much higher priority in finding a second-in-command. What Tesla
is trying to achieve is part personal genius/drive from Musk, but I would
expect a huge part of it is good logistics and management. Is there something
particularly hard about finding a qualified COO for Tesla?

~~~
mdorazio
> Is there something particularly hard about finding a qualified COO for
> Tesla?

From talking to a few former execs at Tesla, yes: working directly for Elon.

~~~
virgilp
Gwynne Shotwell seems to be doing that just fine. Surely she's not unique in
the world - though I do agree that COOs that meet Elon's bar are probably
extremely rare.

~~~
practice9
From what I've read she is not afraid to confront him on different issues. She
is as passionate about SpaceX as he is.

~~~
ceejayoz
Yeah - she was also a first-year employee, SpaceX's eleventh overall. She's
got the seniority and the clear long-term established loyalty to be able to
say "no", something a newly-minted Tesla COO wouldn't necessarily have.

------
shriver
> Efforts are underway to find a No. 2 executive to help take some of the
> pressure off Mr. Musk, people briefed on the search said.

I don't know how anyone could read this and not realise that's a direct search
for a replacement CEO. With the best will in the world, Musk has a dozen
people at Tesla who COULD pick up some of the slack, the issue isn't not
having the right people, the issue is that he won't hand anything off. I don't
see that changing.

~~~
mandeepj
> he won't hand anything off

Really? You have a real example of SpaceX and see how things are running
there. They have a very competent COO running the things smoothly there.

------
dharma1
I'm afraid his health will be impacted by several years of unimaginable stress
caused too much responsibility, real and perceived attacks on his business,
sometimes unrealistic promises - and trying to follow up on them, long hours
and lack of sleep. Not to mention the trade offs he has made with
family/friends vs work.

I think we should all be very grateful to the hugely important work he is
doing to advance electric vehicles and space exploration, literally forcing
two slow moving industries to move much faster, in the right direction. But I
wish he was able to do it without working himself to death, or by expecting
his colleagues work to death. Maybe it's not possible

------
Nasrudith
Really Elon Musk has struck me as honestly in need of psychiatric help - not
in a derogatory way but a sincere one. Between the outbursts, shortsighted
impulsive decisions, and well being CEO of so many different companies at once
it sort of resembles some combination of ADHD and Bipolar.

~~~
aws_ls
I think, the problem is just easy access to twitter. We have seen so many
downfalls on Twitter, due to irresponsible tweeting, haven't we? I think, its
just that.

Before the "pedo" tweet, I never felt, any problem with his tweeting. But now,
this is the second big gaffe.

A twitter _buffer_ feature, could have avoided both issues.

But at the same time, I won't like him to delete his account. Kind of enjoy
his tweets - and knowing that they are his (sometimes raw) thoughts.

May be we just need to forgive more. If a person wants to _recall_ a tweet.
What they tweeted should not be held too much against them, perhaps.

~~~
ohitsdom
Not sure a buffer feature helps when he says he didn't regret his "funding
secured" tweet. It may have prevented his tweet about the diver, but it's not
clear he realized it was a problem until there was significant public backlash
(which feedback wouldn't be present in some buffer).

------
40acres
If you've read the biography by Ashlee Vance this shouldn't surprise you. Musk
has always been a guy who runs at 100%, even at the sake of his personal life.
On the one hand it's inspiring but also very concerning. The board should
insist upon a COO.

~~~
speedplane
> "even at the sake of his personal life"

This is the wrong attitude. Musk doesn't sacrifice his personal life for work,
his work is his life. If anything, he sacrifices his work life for the few
personal connections he is forced to make.

I definitely don't pity Musk, he found his calling and is answering it, he can
deal with the consequences.

------
sschueller
It feels to me like Elon is unable or not wanting to delegate. Working 120
hours a week is not productive.

~~~
yAnonymous
>Working 120 hours a week is not productive.

My WoW character disagrees. Seriously though, if you enjoy what you're doing,
doing a lot of it is fine.

~~~
maeln
If you really work 120h/weeks, it means that you are left with 48h per week
for sleeping/eating/doing other things.

Unless he included those hours in the work hour, 48h in 7 days is just not
sustainable, it's barely enough just for sleep.

~~~
yAnonymous
Almost 7 hours of sleep per night is more than sustainable. There are people
who can get along with 5 hours of sleep per night without any impact to their
health.

~~~
maeln
That is assuming that he does just that: working and sleeping. So I guess, the
time where he eats and tweet is included in its work hours then.

~~~
soared
Thats not terribly far fetched. I eat breakfast and lunch while working. If I
had my own office I'd have a treadmill desk too.

------
_gbc
Saying no to some things would probably help. He is on track to burn out or
have a breakdown at the current rate, assuming it hasn't already happened.

Personally, I'd love to see him close or sell every company other than SpaceX
and focus all of his efforts there.

~~~
shriver
I think when you look back at the pedo comments, and the market manipulation
tweets you can easily see him as being in the middle of the breakdown. The
question isn't whether he'll break down, but what his next outlandish fuck up
will be and how far it'll go before someone steps in.

------
whamlastxmas
I had noticed the constantly media bias against Musk recently but didn't
realize the motivation until reading this. It feels sad that we live in a
world where people plant media stories to tank someone's life work after short
selling to make money off their misery.

------
m3mpp
This culture of startup is completely insane, what can possibly justify
driving oneself to the limit of craziness? Revolutionize the world? How can
you revolutionize anything when the method you are using are what created the
problem in the first place (always more, always faster)?

It's ego, that's all it is, and it usually ends up very badly.

------
m23khan
Edison, Einstein, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk...

These guys have changed the World and they all have seriously strange, weird
personalities - but they did change the world.

Let's learn a lesson over here -- geniuses and industry disrupters are more
often than not --- just weird and strange bunch of folks. Hence, learn to
respect them and do what you can to make sure they succeed as Human innovation
depends on them.

The super-smart and inventors like these guys have always been weird, and
somewhat not friendly bunch of folks. It is the rest of us who have started to
complain and bicker too much and are becoming extremely judgemental and
emotionally fragile by the day.

Call it by product of the extremely opinionated media or the capability of
anonymously posting anger on the internet -- but this isn't helpful behavior
from us.

~~~
e40
There is a very good reason for this: to make such an agent of change requires
intensity beyond what most humans can endure. I don't think Bezos or Musk or
Jobs have/had much of a life outside of work. I think it's also clear they all
are/were obsessed with their companies. Obsession and hard work, sustained
over a long period of time. People capable of that are few and far between.
Add in the luck factor, and it's a miniscule number of people.

------
bayesian_horse
Twitter is bad for you.

Repeat that a hundred times.

~~~
refurb
Underrated comment here.

There is little to be gained and a ton to be lost with such a casual, public
forum.

If anyone in a leadership position thinks “I should tweet this!”, the default
should be waiting 24 hours before making a final decision and even in that
case the answer should be “no”.

~~~
whamlastxmas
Would you wait 24 hours before tweeting about that new car you just bought?
The thing with people in Elon's position is that the gravity of their
situation becomes normalized. They're regular people doing regular things from
their own perspective. For Elon he doesn't put much thought into his tweets
because for him, saying something that might impact the stock price is a
pretty normalized. It happened recently with pedo-guy-gate. I can cut the guy
some slack for potentially upsetting some people with his tweets considering
the massive smear campaign against him and his life's work.

~~~
bdcravens
Understanding the impact of one's words is a prerequisite of leadership. Does
Bill Gates or the CEO of a big oil or pharma get the same pass?

------
Waterluvian
At 47 Musk is likely on the back 9 of his life. I guess it's perfectly fine
for him to decide that anyone can have a family and the legacy he wants is in
his inventions and companies. But if Musk doesn't see it that way, and finds
value in the other intangibles, now's the time to make that change. Not one
more year, one more quarter, one more meeting. Now.

And this is true for all of us. Be careful how much time you convert into
money. You can't convert it back.

------
csorrell
This is what burnout looks like. At some point you just hit a wall.

------
jasonszhao
Similar news from 2015:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10334001](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10334001)

------
konschubert
Musk says he's working 120 hours per week. That's 6 hours of sleep, the rest
is work.

I don't believe that he's working 120 hours because that's the exact amount of
work it's takes to make is companies succeed.

I believe he works 120 hours per week because that's simply the max amount of
hours he can work.

There is no reason to assume that he can't reduce this work by 20% at least
with some prioritization and delegation.

He doesn't seem to consider this a possibility.

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JohnJamesRambo
I really think the tweeting while on acid rumors are true. This is my first
exposure to the pedo comment he made. I’m baffled how any non-drugged person
over the age of 14 could ever think that was a good idea.

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dwighttk
Maybe a year in prison or so will save his life.

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factsaresacred
His quote on those shorting Tesla stock is a gem:

> _“They’re not dumb guys, but they’re not supersmart. They’re O.K. They’re
> smartish.”_

~~~
akvadrako
Well it is the most obvious short of the past few years; doesn't take a
genius.

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oelmekki
I'm surprised we're not discussing what seems to be the core problem from Elon
Musk's point of view : financial aggressivity.

While his tweet doesn't say why he wants to go private, this article makes it
pretty clear : he's harassed by shorters (people who speculate on price going
down, and thus who will contribute negative and unfounded opinions just to
achieve this goal).

Whether this is really his biggest burden or not, there is certainly something
to be said about people who earn money because others are in trouble. In any
case, seeing that people _want_ you to have troubles certainly doesn't help.

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asknthrow
> spent his birthday holed up in Tesla’s offices as the company raced to meet
> elusive production targets.

How tough?!

~~~
TaylorAlexander
I don’t know if you’ve ever put your whole body and life in to a project, but
we can push ourselves well past our healthy limits. It can genuinely be hard
on our bodies and our minds.

~~~
ndespres
Very little sympathy from me for someone suffering from the delusions of
grandeur combined with self-martyrdom, especially when combined with the petty
foolishness constantly on display from him. And for what? To blow off his
brothers wedding as described in the article to resume pacing the tesla plant
speaks volumes about this guys character.

~~~
lazysheepherd
ndespres people are different, and hope you are enjoying your life in your
way. What Musk is experiencing is not extrinsic and he is not martyr for
anyone. He does this because it is the most remarkable drive he has about
life. It just happens to him because of his biology and it is not a calculated
act. Fulfilling that intrinsic drive is the most rewarding feeling one can
experience.

------
enraged_camel
Musk may have made the biggest mistake of his career with that single tweet.
According to rumors, Tesla's internal legal team has begun to calculate
damages; possible impact from potential investor lawsuits apparently surpasses
$1 billion.

[https://twitter.com/CGasparino/status/1030176495631839232](https://twitter.com/CGasparino/status/1030176495631839232)

~~~
TomMckenny
Pity that we've structured our world such that one tweet can so damage such
clever companies as Tesla and maybe SpaceX.

~~~
dwaltrip
I'm pretty sure it's always been the case that those with power can cause a
lot of damage with a small amount of effort.

~~~
Fnoord
Yes, but those in power were able to get away with it in the past. Now they're
held accountable, in public, like a public crucifixion. Pressure of 21st
century is enormous.

~~~
wastedhours
Not just the 21st century, this story on Ratners losing billions after some
ill-thought jokes at the company's expense: [https://thehustle.co/gerald-
ratners-billion-dollar-speech](https://thehustle.co/gerald-ratners-billion-
dollar-speech)

~~~
Fnoord
Ah yes, the infamous Ratner effect. I learned about it due to the Elop effect
(the nail in the coffin of good ol' Nokia's demise).

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WheelsAtLarge
Musk has turned himself into a marketing machine in the same manner that the
Kardashians have. He sets up dramatic situations that have villains and he
plays the good guy trying to save the world from ruin.

I commend him for being able to manipulate the media. With their help he's
been able to build a billion dollar company. I wish I could do the same.

But at this point, I DON'T CARE. All I want to do is read the news and keep up
to date with what is happening without having to read anything about him.

I find it interesting how we celebrate the fact that we now have all the
information we want at our fingertips. But I feel less informed now than when
TV and newspapers were the major form of information distributors. -- mainly
because of all the trashy info that's available to us. The Tesla daily drama
is a great example of trashy news.

Tesla can survive or disappear, I don't care. Just get off the daily
headlines.

~~~
dmode
You felt compelled to comment here though.

