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Elon Musk is now worth $167 billion dollars. And depending on when you’re watching this video, he could be worth even more.
Despite all the five star hotels he could sleep in, the Tesla CEO chooses to sleep at his factories. Not just now and again, but often.
That’s what he did during his recent visit to the Gigafactory under construction in Berlin - Tesla’s first vehicle factory in Europethat will start turning out Model Ys this year.
Interviewer: Where do you sleep tonight?
Elon: Tonight, it’s in the factory.
Interviewer: In the factory? Not in a hotel?
Elon: Well, technically, a conference room in the factory, but yeah.Interviewer: You sleep in the conference room in the not finished factory tonight?
Elon: Yah, it gives me a good feel for what’s going on.
Interviewer: Alone or...?
Elon: Yah, I assume so.Is that an invitation? Hahaha
Kidding aside, he’s been doing this for years.
Including camping on the roof of Tesla’s battery factory in the Nevada desert.
And he showed CBS exactly where he slept at Tesla’s manufacturing plant in Fremont, California.
I sleep on the couch over there. Last time I was here I actually slept literally on the floor because the couch was too narrow.
When things get really intense and I don’t have time to go home and shower and change, so I just sleep here.
Saving time isn’t the only reason he sleeps at work, it’s just his style.
He explains that he doesn’t want to be one of those CEOs in an ivory tower, far removed from the hardships his employees face on the frontline.
He says he wants his pain to be worse than theirs.
There’s no question, his employees have had to endure a lot to get Tesla to where it is today.
The company delivered nearly half a million cars in 2020 - a stunning achievement considering how close it was to bankruptcy a few short years agoas it struggled to mass-produce the Model 3.
In 2018, Tesla planned on producing 5,000 Model 3s every weekbut only managed about 800 a week in the first three months of that year.
Frankly, we’re gonna be in production hell. Welcome, welcome.
Part of the problem was that Tesla relied on too much automation, or, too many robots, too early. And any issue would cause the entire assembly line to stop.
The human staff was also overworked, exhausted, and according to a report in the Guardian, even passing out on the factory floor.
In response to this article, Musk said he cared deeply about the health and safety of his employeesand emphasized that Tesla’s safety record had improved significantly since then.
But shortly after, Tesla was hit by another claim of high injury rates at the factory.
So Musk responded with an all-staff email that’s been applauded by leadership experts.
He wrote: No words can express how much I care about your safety and wellbeing. It breaks my heart when someone is injured building cars and trying their best to make Tesla successful.
He went on to say he’d meet with every injured employee and would "...go down to the production line and perform the same task that they perform.”
It’s not certain whether he actually met with every single injured personbut this hands-on approach was clear evidence that he’s willing to put himself at the very heart of problem-solving.
And sleeping in his factories could go a long way toward inspiring his employees to make Tesla an overwhelming successby helping the world transition to sustainable energy.
Tesla aims to produce 20 million cars a year by 2030 - that’s 40 times what it produced in 2020.
Only an insane amount of hard work will get Tesla there.
Musk says at times he’s clocked in more than 120 hours a week - a work ethic that he adopted early on.
When he and his brother Kimbal founded their first company, Zip2, which was like an internet version of the yellow pages, they only had one computer.
So the website ran during the day while they coded at night.
They also slept at the office because they didn’t have an apartment and showered at the YMCA.
He doesn’t expect his employees to camp out at work but does expect them to spend a lot of waking hours there.
During that painful production ramp-up of the Model 3, staff was working 100 hours a week. That’s the equivalent of 14 hours a day, seven days a week.
Critics say he pushed his workers to the brink. Musk said there was no other way to meet Tesla’s production targets.
The company bounced back and exceeded its delivery goals in the second half of 2019.
Tesla is now the most valuable car company in the world as its stock price continues to soar.
Musk’s rocket company SpaceX is also soaring - literally - as it tests out prototypes of the massive Starship systemthat plans to send people to the moon and Mars.
Even though his companies’ futures look bright, the CEO says it’s no time to slow down.
He once explained that if someone is working 50 hours a week and you’re working 100,you’ll get twice as much done in the course of a year and be that much further ahead.
Perhaps this mentality is the reason that on Glassdoor reviews,only 65% of Tesla employees recommend working there compared with 85% who recommend Apple.
That doesn’t mean people don’t want to be hired at Tesla. They just recognize it’s a demanding place to work.
As Musk himself has admitted, “There are way easier places to work, but nobody ever changed the world on 40 hours a week”.
So his couch-sleeping will probably continue. Though he might find it somewhat more comfortable now.
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