Late this week, Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter, criticized Ralph Nader, a liberal who ran unsuccessfully for president four times, for comments he made about several of Musk’s firms.
Nader tweeted that Musk (@elonmusk) “founded Tesla with a sizable welfare subsidy from the US government. He has ripped off taxpayers to benefit his factories and Starlink. He is a massive corporate welfare king who poses as a successful businessman.”
“Ralph Nader, you are lying – shame on you,” responded Musk. “Based on my PayPal earnings, I directly funded practically all of Tesla’s operations from Series A in 2004 through Series C in 2007.”
“Towards the end of 2008, I gave Tesla my final savings. It was either that or the business would have failed,” said Musk. “We ended the funding round on Christmas Eve at six o’clock. Two days after Christmas, Tesla would have filed for bankruptcy if we had not closed that round.”
He continued, “I didn’t give my last dollar believing it would be profitable; I gave it thinking Tesla would probably still perish. A loan from the vehicle efficiency lending program in Q2 2010 was the first significant government funding Tesla received. Tesla made an early repayment of the loan plus interest. The tax payers actually came out ahead.”
The electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla was started in 2003 by businessmen Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, not Elon Musk.
Along with running Tesla and SpaceX, Musk also serves as the CEO of a number of side companies, including The Boring Company and Neuralink.
Musk remarked after buying Twitter, “You know, my workload has recently grown quite a bit. “I mean, I definitely have too much work on my plate. Without a question.”
The richest guy in the world made a comment about businessmen who aspire to be the “Elon Musk of the East,” claiming that his lifestyle is not necessarily one that should be pursued. “Be careful what you wish for, I advise. How many people would truly want to be me? I don’t know,” he replied. “They would want to be what they see me to be, which is not the same as who I am in reality. To be honest, I torture myself to an extreme degree.”
Musk stated in an interview with Recode four years ago that he has worked 120 hours per week, even though he thinks 80 hours per week to be “quite manageable.” The average chief executive works 62.5 hours each week, according to a Harvard Business Review research.
“There were instances where, for a few weeks, I haven’t kept count, but I would essentially alternate between working and sleeping for short periods of time seven days a week. Some of those days have to have been crazy, like 120 hours,” he said. “For hours, the intensity of suffering escalates exponentially. Above 80, it’s nonlinear like that.”
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