Twitter, Space X, and Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, has told Wall Street Journal in an interview that his days are very long and complicated.
He said, “My days are very long and complicated as you might imagine.”
“And there’s a great deal of context switching,” he said, emphasizing that “switching context is quite painful.”
Musk said he generally tries to divide his schedule “so it’s predominantly one company on one day.”
But that’s not always possible. This Tuesday was “a Tesla day,” he said, but he “might end up at Twitter late tonight, and then tomorrow would be partly a Tesla day as well, half Twitter and then Thursday would be sort of a half-SpaceX, half-Tesla day.”
He described his jobs as “somewhat intertwined,” and said, “The time management is extremely difficult.”
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The complexity hasn’t been good for his investments. Tesla shares lost more than half their value in the two months after the Twitter deal closed last year, on concern that Musk would have less time to focus on the electric car maker even as the market was getting more competitive. Meanwhile, advertisers fled or temporarily suspended their campaigns on Twitter, and in March Musk marked down the value of the company to $20 billion. Musk said on Tuesday that many advertisers are coming back.
While other executives may outsource their calendar to a chief of staff or executive assistant, Musk said he does most of his scheduling on his own. He said he has “one part-time assistant” to help him manage his work schedule, a fact that was corroborated by a former Tesla employee.
“It’s impossible for someone else to know what the priorities are,” Musk said, adding that he is usually working most hours of the day, wrapping up at 2 a.m., his typical bedtime.
At Twitter, Musk now plans to shift into the role of executive chairman and technology chief, with former NBC ad executive Linda Yaccarino slated to become CEO.
However, Twitter is primarily a technology company, so his ongoing job as CTO will likely be demanding.
