What Does “Extreme Hard Work” Look Like Under Elon Musk?

Newsthink is produced and presented by Cindy Pom

Thank you to our Patrons, including Igli Laci

Special thanks to the following for permission to use their material:

The interviews and footage aired in the story constitute Fair Use for news reporting purposes. Other elements were purchased by Newsthink Ltd. or fall under a creative commons license in which re-use is allowed.

Thumbnail source:

Image sources:
6:19 Elon Musk photo sourced from @elonmusk on Twitter

Articles and interviews referenced:
-remote-work-twitter-return-to-office-email-employees/12440688/

[Newsthink]

*Do you think Elon Musk will make Twitter profitable?*

[travelator]

If I’m working 120 hour/week workdays, I’d rather do that working for myself.

[alonshahar]

Holy shit, this guy is a cartoon villian version of a CEO

[TheHandsomeOne]

Wow working for him seems like, you almost have to live for him..

[littleripper]

I'm self employed and I work 6 days a week for about 10hrs a day, with about 3-4hrs of that been deep focus and the rest is lighter activities. I would never work those hours for someone else. On my own company I have no issues working whatever hours a I need to but I would never put those hours and passion in for someone elses company that they get credit for. I also don't expect people working for me to have the same passion I do for my own company.

[yusalcido]

As a fellow autistic person, I can definitely empathize on working like a machine and not noticing other people's feelings, but it can definitely lead to burnout.

[quadeong]

And now Elon spends his entire day tweeting

[scoutiano]

I laugh at the people that think slaving away your youth for someone else, completely neglecting all relationships in your life is a worth it encounter. I hate the people that attack others for choosing not to work under these conditions and defend billionaires and worship them, like the Elon Musk fanboys.

[bornloser]

I'm not a Twitter user so I don't really know 100% how the platform works and how often it updates. I do agree with Elon on how he wants the best workers and wants employees to actually work, instead of halfassing it everyday because the workplace culture is laid back. A company like Twitter should have employees who feel privileged to be there

[mrmo]

In many countries it is illegal to force people to work 80 hours per week. I guess people in USA just don't have the same rights and freedoms as in other countries.

[malamedija]

Great storyteling and amazing channel! Keep it up! Greetings from Serbia! 🙏👏❤

[jimmiejohnsson]

One has to ask himself - whats in it for the employees? I dont mind to work hard, but to work yourself to the bones risking a potential burnout - it had better come with amazing rewards. I cant see where these rewards are for the twitter workers? Do they get a base salary 10x that of other FANG companies? Bonuses 10x other companies? Sure, monetary rewards isnt everything you could be in it to make great connections, but I cant see what those would be either. It sounds like a sucker bet where you will burn yourself out working at a low level tier social media platform for a good, but not great salary. Im sure some younger people will let themselves be fooled by this kind of ”work hard” talks, but most ppl with some personal experience wont be very impressed

[akashverma]

Elon Musk is bluff master. He works 25 hours a day and still get time to act in dozens of movies and series, participate in youtube podcasts and have affair with multiple celebrities and colleague.

[potodds_trading]

Scott Schafer latest Youtube seems to suggest the Scotland land thing is a scam. He's said several YouTubers are making $20k a month to pump it.

[kolar]

I think all this "Musk worked long hours at Tesla" is going to have to be backed up by something concrete in the lawsuit about his compensation. I doubt highly he worked as hard or as long hours as the engineers he didn't fire. But still made sure to underpay and stress the fuck out of them.

[florchavez]

Thank you for sharing is caring god bless you always and forever ❤️🕊

[annekeruben]

Working 80 hours in tech is not exactly uncommon - Elon Musk is just upfront about it. Honestly, I'm surprised that such an 'elite' company like Twitter had developers who worked only 4 hours a week. I doubt they're great programmers - programming languages change the whole time - and the best programmers constantly work to improve their portfolios. It's a never-ending learning journey when you're a programmer aiming to earn the big bucks.

[deadringer-cultofdeathratt]

unpopular opinion: i'm a fan of the work ethic. it gets boring seeing everyone overworry about eachothers feelings. "oh my bossed yelled at me so im going to record him and get him fired" and then that same person will go to mcdonalds and curse out the drive through highschool girl because somebody forgot the fries. i think its refreshing to see hardcore work being demanded outside of oil rig jobs. its nobody in these comments including myself would make the cut for elons team, so the amount of people complaining about said team doesn't matter.

[Firepowered]

Very interesting to learn that Elon has the same outlook on how work should be managed as my octuagenarian boss.

[t.]

"This means working long hours at high intensity."

All while at the end of the day, one person becomes tens of billions of dollars richer, and the 3000 other people putting in almost as much work make $50K a year

Not to criticize Musk, just saying.