Elon Musk warns business leaders who want to be like him: “Be careful what you wish for. The amount I torment is next level.
Billionaire Elon Musk has assumed responsibility for yet another company by acquiring Twitter. And while some see his track record as a goal, Musk himself doesn’t believe it’s a lifestyle others should aspire to.
“I would be careful what you wish for. I’m not sure how many people would really like to be me,” he said via video link to the B20 business conference in Bali in response to an observation that many executives in Asia East wanted to become “the Elon Musk of the world.”
“They want to be what they imagine me to be, which isn’t the same as me actually being,” Musk continued. “The amount I’m torturing myself with is honestly next level.”
As CEO of social media company Twitter, as well as Tesla and SpaceX, Musk also founded startups Neuralink and The Boring Company.
A self-confessed workaholic and “nanomanager,” numerous reports have previously revealed his tendency to get involved in other areas from which a typical CEO might step down.
At Tesla, Musk has made decisions ranging from car styling to supply chain issues. Meanwhile, in just a few weeks, he’s been involved in laying off over 50% of Twitter’s workforce while implementing (and removing) major changes to the platform’s features, moderation systems, and means of generating profits.
Revised seven days a week
Musk added that this responsibility means he never stops working, and he’s currently working “the absolute heaviest volume … morning ’til night, seven days a week.”
“I certainly have too much work on my plate,” he said.
As long as he stays distracted from his $44 billion Twitter deal, the intensity appears to be sustained. Musk reportedly told employees they needed to work with an “insane sense of urgency” to prepare for a predicted recession.
As for its other companies, too much straying from them has already had consequences — earlier this month, Tesla stock fell to its lowest level in nearly 18 months, and Wedbush analyst Dan Ives removed the stock from the company’s best ideas list company and attributed the bad PR distraction to Musk’s work at Twitter.
“Musk has essentially tarnished Tesla history/stock and is beginning to potentially impact the Tesla brand with this ongoing train wreck disaster on Twitter,” Ives wrote in a note to clients.
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