Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks with CNBC on May 16, 2023.
David A. Grogan | CNBC
Elon Musk added to his work portfolio late last year, when he acquired Twitter for $44 billion and named himself CEO. Although he recently announced a successor to this position, the position is still his and he remains the CEO of You’re here and SpaceX.
He talked about trying to manage his schedule in an interview Tuesday with The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit.
“My days are very long and complicated as you can imagine,” Musk said. “And there’s a lot of context switching,” he said, noting that “context switching is quite painful.”
Musk said he usually tries to split his schedule “so it’s mostly business a day.”
But this is not always possible. This Tuesday was “Tesla day,” he said, but he “might end up on Twitter late tonight, and tomorrow would also be part Tesla day, half Twitter, and then Thursday would be kind of half SpaceX , half -Tesla day.”
He described his jobs as “somewhat tied” and said “time management is extremely difficult”.
The complexity has not been good for his investments. Tesla shares lost more than half their value in the two months after the deal was struck on Twitter last year, amid fears Musk would have less time to focus on the carmaker. electric cars even as the market became more competitive. Meanwhile, advertisers fled or temporarily suspended their campaigns on Twitter, and in March Musk brand the value of the company at $20 billion. Musk said Tuesday that many advertisers are returning.
While other executives may outsource their schedule to a chief of staff or executive assistant, Musk said he handles most of his schedule himself. He said he had “a part-time assistant” to help manage his work schedule, a fact that was corroborated by a former Tesla employee.
“It’s impossible for anyone else to know what the priorities are,” Musk said, adding that he typically works most hours of the day, ending at 2 a.m., his usual bedtime. .
At Twitter, Musk is now considering a move to executive chairman and chief technology officer, along with former NBC advertising director Linda Yaccarino. called to become CEO.
However, Twitter is first and foremost a technology company, so its continued work as CTO will likely be demanding.
Thorold Barker, the Wall Street Journal’s Europe, Middle East and Africa editor, asked Musk if he had a succession plan in place at his companies.
“Succession is one of the most difficult and oldest issues,” Musk said. “They have been plagued countries, kings, prime ministers and presidents and CEOs since the dawn of history.”
Musk said he has told his boards, “in any case,” who is his choice to take over in the “worst-case scenario.” He pointed out that corporate boards could also go in another direction when it comes to who should step into their shoes.
At Tesla, there has been speculation that the chief financial officer Zachary Kirkhorn is among the candidates Musk would endorse as his successor.
As CNBC previously reported, Musk’s companies frequently engage in related party transactionsand he is confronted political pressure to better separate them.
After Musk took over Twitter, for example, he allowed dozens of employees from Tesla, SpaceX and Boring Co. to help him with the social media adventure. The “transition team” he created at Twitter has been involved in everything from code reviews to personnel and facility decisions.
Musk was also a co-founding director and donor of OpenAI, a former nonprofit now backed by Microsoft. 2017 financial deposits for OpenAI reveal that Musk donated approximately $250,000 worth of Tesla vehicles as part of his millions of dollars in donations to OpenAI in its early days.
Lately, Musk has openly attacked OpenAI’s corporate structure and the amount of ownership sold to Microsoft. On Tuesday, Musk talked about X.ai, a competitor he wants to develop to challenge OpenAI, and Google’s DeepMind.
“I don’t want to skip over ads here,” Musk said. “But OpenAI has a relationship with Microsoft that seems to be working quite well, and it’s possible that X.ai, Twitter, and Tesla have something similar.”
