Instead of hiring an executive assistant, Musk took on most of the work himself.

After announcing his successor Twitter CEO, Elon Musk returned to key roles at electric car company Tesla and aerospace company SpaceX. In an interview at the WSJ, he said he tried to manage his schedule well.

“My days are longer and more complicated than you can imagine,” Musk said, later saying he would take care of a company every day.

“It’s not always a fixed company every day. Tuesday is for Tesla, Wednesday is for Twitter, but maybe half a Thursday is for Tesla, the other half is for Twitter,” Musk said, describing his work as “a bit intertwined,” adding that “the time management process is extremely difficult.”

Instead of recruiting an executive assistant, Musk took on most of the schedules himself. “Other people don’t know what they should prioritize,” Musk said, adding that he usually ends his workday at 2 a.m.

At Twitter, Musk is planning to move into the role of executive chairman or chief technology officer (CTO), while Linda Yaccarino is expected to become CEO. Twitter is a technology company, so the responsibilities of a CTO won’t be easy.

“I go to bed, wake up, work, go to bed, wake up, work. That’s seven days a week,” Musk said, adding that since taking over Twitter last October, the workload has increased from 80 hours to more than 120 hours a week.

“I had to, I had no choice.”

Instead of hiring an executive assistant, Musk took on most of the work himself.

In an interview with CNBC recently, the billionaire also said that he only takes 2-3 days of vacation per year, the rest focuses on getting rich. Working 7 days a week and sleeping only 6 hours a day, Musk called it “unscrupulous” for those who prefer to work remotely or from home, while other workers are willing to sleep at the company to complete their plans.

“At SpaceX, I’m responsible for rocket engineering. At Tesla, I’m responsible for assistive technology,” Musk said. “The CEO is often focused on business operations, when in reality, my role is much larger, going beyond the role of a technology development engineer. I have to make sure the company is developing disruptive technologies well and has a great team of engineers who can realize those goals.”

Earlier, in an interview with the WSJ, Elon Musk also opened up about insomnia and back pain.

“I had trouble sleeping last night. Unfortunately, I’m not in a very good state,” the billionaire told his lawyer during a court hearing in San Francisco. “Sorry to say miscellaneous but I have pretty bad back pain.”

Musk has long had a reputation as a workaholic, single-handedly running 3.4 companies, including Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter and The Boring Company. His passion and tenacity helped him do extraordinary things, such as launching rockets into space and pioneering the revolution of electric cars.

“My days are longer and more complicated than you can imagine,” Musk said

However, this means that the 51-year-old has to make many trade-offs. “I sleep, I wake up, I work, then I go back to bed, I wake up, I work… Just like that 7 days a week. I’ll have to do this for a while because there’s no other option. However, once Twitter moves in the right direction, I think the company will be much easier to manage than SpaceX or Tesla,” Musk said.

In 2020, he also admitted to undergoing two surgeries to repair neck pain. The reason largely comes from once stepping into the “ring” of Musk’s sumo test wrestling at a party. The “tug-of-war” with a 350-pound opponent caused Musk a spinal injury and 8 years later suffered severe back pain.

“As a way to relax in the midst of a busy schedule,” Elon Musk regularly takes Ambien sleeping pills.

“A bit of red wine, classic records, Ambien pills… and boom, magic happens!” joked Musk.

However, according to the New York Times, the Tesla board of directors is extremely worried when sleeping pills sometimes do not help Musk sleep well but make him tweet “miscellaneous” in the middle of the night.

“Actually, I’m not very good. Some friends, who really cared, came to visit me,” Musk said in 2018.