Sleeping in office, working daily: Elon Musk returns to "wartime CEO" life

CEOs like Elon Musk have a worklife only some like Soham Parekh can try to match up to. Elon has resumed a 7‑day workweek and is once again sleeping in his office whenever his children are away. He calls himself the “wartime CEO.”

Elon Musk shares clip of himself in “wartime mode” during Tesla’s production crisis

In the video, Elon acknowledged the toll of extreme work:

“No one should put these many hours into work. This is not good...It hurts my brain and my heart.”

Tesla Model 3 Crisis (2018): Elon worked 120‑hour weeks and slept on the factory floor amid existential financial pressure, stating they were losing $50–100M weekly.

According to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Team, he claimed his team worked 120‑hour weeks, contrasting with a standard 40‑hour bureaucratic pace.

In 2022, Elon revealed spending about three years living in Tesla factories, sleeping in tents or under desks, despite the discomfort and metal dust smells.

He used Tesla’s Fremont and Nevada factories as his primary residence.

Even though Elon recently claimed that overworking hurts him, he had mandated staff work long hours at high intensity when he bought Twitter (now X) and offered severance to those who refused.

Reports even surfaced that Twitter HQ was converted into a quasi-dormitory (“Twitter Hotel”) and defended it as employee support.

Some see his renewed enthusiasm as a way to warm up to investors ahead of Tesla’s Q2 earnings, which release July 23, 2025.

As per the report, Tesla remained profitable in Q2 2025, posting around $1.5 billion in adjusted net income, despite slowdown in sales and margin pressure. However, the company remained profitable in Q2 2025, posting around $1.5 billion in adjusted net income.

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