Elon Musk was at home in Los Angeles, struggling to maintain his composure. “This past year has been the most difficult and painful year of my career,” he said. “It was excruciating.”
The year has only gotten more intense for Mr. Musk, the chairman and chief executive of the electric-car maker Tesla, since he abruptly declared on Twitter last week that he hoped to convert the publicly traded company into a private one. The episode kicked off a furor in the markets and within Tesla itself, and he acknowledged on Thursday that he was fraying.
In an hourlong interview with The New York Times, he choked up multiple times, noting that he nearly missed his brother’s wedding this summer and spent his birthday holed up in Tesla’s offices as the company raced to meet elusive production targets on a crucial new model.
Asked if the exhaustion was taking a toll on his physical health, Mr. Musk answered: “It’s not been great, actually. I’ve had friends come by who are really concerned.”
Elon Musk is hurting.
"This past year has been the most difficult and painful year of my career," he said in an emotional interview with The New York Times published late Thursday. "It was excruciating."
The interview — during which The Times said Musk "alternated between laughter and tears" — comes amid the turmoil the Tesla (TSLA) chief triggered last week when he tweeted that he had secured funding to take the electric car maker private.
The stunning announcement sent Tesla's stock on a wild ride, prompting lawsuits and reportedly drawing scrutiny from regulators.
Related: Could Elon Musk lose control of Tesla?
Musk told The Times that no one else saw the tweet before he posted it while en route from his house to the airport. He said he doesn't regret sending it and has no plans to leave Twitter (TWTR).
The billionaire entrepreneur dismissed speculation that the Tesla stock price he quoted in the tweet — $420 — was a hint that he was smoking pot. (April 20, or 4/20, is known as "Weed Day" in some circles.)
"It seemed like better karma at $420 than at $419," Musk told The Times. "But I was not on weed, to be clear. Weed is not helpful for productivity. There's a reason for the word 'stoned.' You just sit there like a stone on weed."
Tesla's stock closed Friday at $305.50 a share, down 9% for the day and 21% since the day of the tweet.
Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 7, 2018
In a blog post earlier this week, Musk said that the "funding secured" tweet referred to conversations he had with Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, which left him believing there was "no question" that a deal could be closed.
Musk has argued that taking Tesla private would relieve the company of the "enormous pressure" of Wall Street's expectations. But there are doubts about whether he will be able to pull the deal off.
Related: Depression in the C-suite
"There have been many false and irresponsible rumors in the press about the discussions of the Tesla Board," Tesla said in a statement. "We would like to make clear that Elon's commitment and dedication to Tesla is obvious. Over the past 15 years, Elon's leadership of the Tesla team has caused Tesla to grow from a small startup to having hundreds of thousands of cars on the road that customers love, employing tens of thousands of people around the world, and creating significant shareholder value in the process."
Friends 'are really concerned'
The storm set off by his tweet last week follows other difficulties at Tesla and the controversy over another post last month in which he insulted a man who helped rescue a group of Thai boys trapped in a cave.
As Tesla struggled to meet production goals for its Model 3 earlier this year, Musk ended up sleeping at the factory.
Asked if exhaustion was physically affecting him, he told The Times: "It's not been great, actually. I've had friends come by who are really concerned."
The 47-year-old, who's known for his relentless work ethic, said in the interview that he had recently been putting in as much as 120 hours a week.
"There were times when I didn't leave the factory for three or four days — days when I didn't go outside," Musk said. "This has really come at the expense of seeing my kids. And seeing friends."
"It is often a choice of no sleep or Ambien," he said, referring to an insomnia medication.
Related: Elon Musk says he expects Saudis to fund plan to take Tesla private
The worst is yet to come
Tesla managed to hit its Model 3 production target in June.
"The worst is over from a Tesla operational standpoint," Musk told The Times. "But from a personal pain standpoint, the worst is yet to come."
He attributed a lot of his stress to short-sellers who bet against Tesla's stock, saying he's preparing himself for "at least a few months of extreme torture from the short-sellers, who are desperately pushing a narrative that will possibly result in Tesla's destruction."
But Musk, who is also the boss of rocket company SpaceX and other ventures, said he has no plans to leave the CEO and chairman roles at Tesla.
"If you have anyone who can do a better job, please let me know," he told The Times. "They can have the job. Is there someone who can do the job better? They can have the reins right now."
Musk says he has endured ‘the most difficult and painful’ time in emotional interview as confession wipes billions off Tesla value
Elon Musk has said the past year of his professional life has been “excruciating” and that stress over his business had caused his health to deteriorate. To make matters worse, the confession wiped billions off the value of Tesla, the electric car company he founded.
In an emotional interview with the New York Times, the founder of electric carmaker Tesla also revealed that the pressures of work had caused him to spend his birthday stuck in the Tesla factory and almost miss his brother’s wedding.
“This past year has been the most difficult and painful year of my career,” he said in the interview.
Elon Musk's tweets investigated for possibly breaking law: reports Read more
Tesla’s shares fell close to 9% on Friday, wiping over $5bn off the company’s value.
Musk, whose company posted a record $709.6m net loss in the first quarter of this year while struggling to manufacture large numbers of its Model 3 mass-market electric car, said he had been working up to 120 hours a week and his health had been “not great”. He said his friends had been worried about him.
Musk said there were times he didn’t leave the factory for three or four days at a time and days when he didn’t go outside.
He said he spent the entire 24 hours of his 47th birthday in June at work and flew directly to his brother’s wedding, where he was due to be best man, from work, arriving two hours before the ceremony and leaving immediately afterwards.
Elon Musk (@elonmusk) Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.
Musk sparked a furore in the markets, the media and among investors earlier this month when he tweeted his intentions to take his publicly traded company private, with the assurance: “Funding secured.”
Lawyers have warned that his tweet may have broken rule 14e-8 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which prohibits publicly traded companies from announcing plans to buy or sell securities if executives don’t intend to complete, don’t have the means to complete, or are trying to manipulate the stock price.
Tesla’s stock rose by 11% after the tweet. But last week, Musk was sued by investors, who claimed his tweets were misleading and were designed to “completely decimate” short-sellers, people who bet that Tesla’s shares will lose value. It has also been reported that the US’s top financial watchdog had launched an investigation into Musk in light of his tweets.
In the interview with the New York Times, Musk blamed short-sellers, from whom he said he anticipated “a few months of extreme torture”.
“I thought the worst of it was over,” he told the New York Times. “But from a personal standpoint, the worst is yet to come.”
He denied “being on weed” at the time of the tweet and said he saw it as an attempt at transparency, but admitted in the interview on Thursday that no one had seen or reviewed it before he posted it. Observers puzzled over the price he cited.
Musk explained that with an estimated premium over recent values, the share price should be around $419. He decided to round it up to $420, he said – a number that is slang for cannabis.
“It seemed like better karma at $420 than at $419,” he said in the interview. “But I was not on weed, to be clear. Weed is not helpful for productivity. There’s a reason for the word ‘stoned’. You just sit there like a stone on weed.”
Musk, who is a controversial figure, has drawn further criticism this year for his tweets. Last month he launched an extraordinary attack on one of the British divers involved in the rescue of 12 boys and their football coach who were trapped in a cave in Thailand, baselessly calling the diver a “pedo” on Twitter.
In June, Musk caused outrage when he responded to a tweet from a woman who claimed Musk had used her father’s unicorn artwork on Tesla merchandise without compensation or attribution, by telling her: “He can sue for money if he wants, but that’s kinda lame.” Musk later settled the dispute with the artist.
Musk has also lashed out at both the media and analysts from large Wall Street banks in recent months, calling questions from analysts “boring, bonehead questions” and suggesting he would start a website to rank the credibility of individual journalists, after Tesla received negative press coverage.
Image copyright Reuters
Tesla shares have plunged after founder Elon Musk revealed to the New York Times he works "120 hour weeks" and takes sedatives.
In the interview, Mr Musk also said he was not "on weed" when he controversially tweeted about taking the company private.
After the comments from Mr Musk, shares were down 8.8%.
The share drop was encouraged by a UBS note predicting Tesla's Model 3 will lose $6,000 per vehicle, as costs soar.
The ramping up of production of the electric car company's mass-market Model 3 was one of the reasons why Mr Musk admitted to being overworked and using the sedative Ambien to help sleep, he said in the interview.
The New York Times interview also discussed his 7 August tweet when the CEO said he wanted to take Tesla private at $420 a share.
Mr Musk said the price of $420 seemed like "better karma" than $419.
"But I was not on weed, to be clear," he said, as he also confirmed the tweet was not reviewed by anyone at the electric car company.
4/20 is an infamous term, more common in the US, that refers to the consumption of cannabis.
The price of $419 would have represented a 20% premium over Tesla's share price at the time.
"It seemed like better karma at $420 than at $419. But I was not on weed, to be clear.
"Weed is not helpful for productivity. There's a reason for the word 'stoned'. You just sit there like a stone on weed," Mr Musk, 47, said.
'No sleep, or Ambien'
He also told the paper that friends had expressed concern that he was exhausted after working 120 hour weeks.
"This past year has been the most difficult and painful year of my career," he said. "It was excruciating."
The paper reported that at times during the interview he stopped speaking, seemingly overcome by emotion - and that he spent the full 24 hours of his birthday on 28 June working.
"All night - no friends, nothing," Mr Musk said.
Mr Musk also said that he took the sedative Ambien to help him sleep when he was not working: "It is often a choice of no sleep, or Ambien."
According to the paper, his use of the drug has concerned some board members, who wonder if it affects his late-night tweets.
In May Roseanne Barr blamed Ambien for her tweet that likened Valerie Jarrett, an African-American former aide to Barack Obama, to an ape.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Elon Musk unveils the Tesla Roadster 2 in November
His tweet about taking Tesla private sparked a sharp rally in Tesla's share price, but has also prompted scrutiny.
London hedge fund manager Crispin Odey, who is shorting Tesla stock, has joined a number of analysts disproving of Mr Musk's running of the company.
According to Bloomberg, Mr Odey told investors: "Tesla feels like it is entering the final stage of its life."
Fox News has reported that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had sent subpoenas to the electric carmaker and was "ramping up" its investigation into the tweet.
'They can have the job'
Tesla's directors said: "There have been many false and irresponsible rumours in the press about the discussions of the Tesla board.
"We would like to make clear that Elon's commitment and dedication to Tesla is obvious.
"Over the past 15 years, Elon's leadership of the Tesla team has caused Tesla to grow from a small start-up to having hundreds of thousands of cars on the road that customers love, employing tens of thousands of people around the world, and creating significant shareholder value in the process."
The statement was issued by the board members, excluding Mr Musk, who controls about a fifth of Tesla shares.
The board has set up a committee to evaluate any take-private proposal from Mr Musk, who has said that he discussed funding a deal with the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund.
The New York Times reported that Mr Musk did not intend to separate the roles of chairman and chief executive, but that a search was underway to recruit a deputy.
However, he said there was "no active search" underway. He added: "If you have anyone who can do a better job, please let me know. They can have the job.
"Is there someone who can do the job better? They can have the reins right now."
