Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, speaks with CNBC on Might sixteenth, 2023.
David A. Grogan | CNBC
Elon Musk added to his work portfolio late final 12 months, when he acquired Twitter for $44 billion and appointed himself CEO. Whereas he just lately introduced a successor for that position, the job is at the moment nonetheless his, and he stays the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX.
He talked about making an attempt to handle his schedule in an interview on Tuesday on the The Wall Road Journal’s CEO Council Summit.
“My days are very lengthy and complex as you may think,” Musk stated. “And there is an excessive amount of context switching,” he stated, emphasizing that “switching context is is kind of painful.”
Musk stated he typically tries to divide his schedule “so it is predominantly one firm on sooner or later.”
However that is not all the time doable. This Tuesday was “a Tesla day,” he stated, however he “may find yourself at Twitter late tonight, after which tomorrow can be partly a Tesla day as properly, half Twitter after which Thursday can be type of a half-SpaceX, half-Tesla day.”
He described his jobs as “considerably intertwined,” and stated “the time administration is extraordinarily troublesome.”
The complexity hasn’t been good for his investments. Tesla shares misplaced greater than half their worth within the two months after the Twitter deal closed final 12 months, on concern that Musk would have much less time to give attention to the electrical automobile maker even because the market was getting extra aggressive. In the meantime, advertisers fled or briefly suspended their campaigns on Twitter, and in March Musk marked down the worth of the corporate to $20 billion. Musk stated on Tuesday that many advertisers are coming again.
Whereas different executives might outsource their calendar to a chief of workers or government assistant, Musk stated he does most of his scheduling on his personal. He stated he has “one part-time assistant” to assist him handle his work schedule, a indisputable fact that was corroborated by a former Tesla worker.
“It is not possible for another person to know what the priorities are,” Musk stated, including that he’s often working most hours of the day, wrapping up at 2 a.m., his typical bedtime.
At Twitter, Musk now plans to shift into the position of government chairman and know-how chief, with former NBC advert government Linda Yaccarino slated to become CEO.
Nonetheless, Twitter is primarily a know-how firm, so his ongoing job as CTO will doubtless be demanding.
Thorold Barker, The Wall Road Journal’s editor for Europe, Center East and Africa, requested Musk if he has a succession plan in place at his companies.
“Succession is without doubt one of the hardest, age-old issues,” Musk stated. “It is plagued nations, kings, prime ministers and presidents, and CEOs because the daybreak of historical past.”
Musk stated he is informed his boards, “in all circumstances,” who’s his option to take over in a “worst-case state of affairs.” He emphasised the businesses’ boards might additionally go in one other course so far as who ought to step into his footwear.
At Tesla, there’s been hypothesis that finance chief Zachary Kirkhorn is amongst candidates who Musk would endorse as a successor.
As CNBC beforehand reported, Musk’s corporations regularly interact in related party transactions, and he is confronted political pressure to extra cleanly separate them.
After Musk took over Twitter, for instance, he authorized dozens of staff from Tesla, SpaceX and the Boring Co. to assist him on the social media enterprise. The “transition staff” he established at Twitter was concerned in all the pieces from code overview to personnel and facilities-related selections.
Musk was additionally a co-founding director and donor to OpenAI, a former non-profit that is now backed by Microsoft. Financial filings from 2017 for OpenAI reveal that Musk donated round $250,000 price of Tesla autos as a part of his thousands and thousands of {dollars} price of donations to OpenAI again in its earlier days.
Of late, Musk has been brazenly attacking OpenAI’s company construction and the quantity of possession it is offered to Microsoft. On Tuesday, Musk talked some about X.ai, a competitor he needs to develop with the intention to problem OpenAI, and Google’s DeepMind.
“I do not wish to leap the gun right here on bulletins,” Musk stated. “However OpenAI has a relationship with Microsoft that appears to work pretty properly, and it is doable that X.ai and Twitter and Tesla would have one thing comparable.”
