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

When Tesla was still a struggling company in 2017,   Elon Musk admitted he fired employees  who had the weakest performance reviews. And he made no apologies for it. If you have two boxers of equal ability and  one's much smaller, the big guy's going to   crush the little guy--obviously.

So, the little  guy better have a heck of a lot more skill . . .  

or he is going to get clobbered. So that is why  our standards are high. They're not high because   we believe in being mean to people.

They're  high because if they're not high, we will die. He believes it's critical to  separate the good from the great. His decision to slash half of Twitter’s staff of   7,500 his first week at the  helm was more controversial.

Did he fire the least effective employees? Did he  even have enough time to figure out who they were? The purge continued two weeks later.

In a late-night company-wide email titled,   “A fork in the road,” Musk reiterated the  kind of person he wants working for him. They’re the ones who “Work extremely hardcore. ” “This will mean working long  hours at high intensity.

Only   exceptional performance will  constitute a passing grade. ” Anyone who didn't commit by clicking the  enclosed link was forced to leave the company. Hundreds are believed to have headed out the  door, flooding Twitter with salute emojis.

But Musk assured that “The best people  are staying, so I’m not super worried. " These are some of the “best  people,” according to the boss. So, what kind of a person  makes the cut under Elon Musk?

Probably not the ones wearing these  shirts found at Twitter headquarters. Clip There’s an entire, entire  closet full of hashtag woke t-shirts. In all seriousness, apparently,  they have to be a bit like him.

He’s the most driven person I think I’ve ever met Former NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman  now works as a consultant for SpaceX. Musk has famously slept at Tesla’s  factories during the most challenging times,   like in 2018 when Tesla struggled  with production of the Model 3. He said he was working 120 hours a week.

Although he said the expectations of his staff are   “much less than I demand of myself,”  his team suffered along with him. They were expected to put in long hours, too. Musk says there was no other way to turn Tesla  around as he told journalist Kara Swisher.

It is absurd that Tesla is alive. Absurd. Absurd. 

So what do you accredit that to? Excruciating effort.  By you?

100-hour weeks. By everyone.  By everyone here at Tesla.

Yes. There wasn’t some other way to do this. It was through the sheer force of their  blood and sweat and perhaps some tears   that Tesla saw the light at the end of  a long, dark tunnel and survived 2018.

He’s now bringing that same work  mentality to Twitter in 2022. He claims the app is losing $4 million  a day and that he has no other choice   but to cut costs and whip Twitter  into shape through extreme effort. Musk told Twitter staff they are expected  in the office at least 40 hours a week,   and reportedly warned them to  brace for 80-hour work weeks,   which would be quite the change  from what many are used to.

Senior Twitter engineer Siru Murugesan  was secretly recorded by the conservative   group Project Veritas admitting  he only worked four hours a week. Musk believes working extraordinarily long  hours gives an extraordinary advantage. Here’s what he said in 2010.

Work like hell. I mean, you just have to put in   80 to 100-hour weeks every week. All those things  improve the odds of success.

If other people are   putting in 40-hour workweeks and you're putting  in 100-hour workweeks, then even if you're doing   the same thing, you know that you will achieve in  four months what it takes them a year to achieve. He’s also banned working from home for  ALL his companies except in exceptional   circumstances as he believes people  slack off when they aren’t in the office. Audio leaked to ABC News reveals  that a Twitter employee challenged   him on his mandatory return to office policy.

Even if people return to the office,   the offices are separate offices  -- we won't be in person anyways. Yes, but you can still maximize  the amount of in-person activity.   Tesla is not one place either…basically  if you can show up at an office and   you do not show up at the office,  resignation accepted -- end of story.

Returning to the office will no longer  include the luxury of free lunches,   a common perk at big tech companies.  Musk has cut this from Twitter’s budget. But it’s not enough to simply work  hard without free food at Elon Musk’s   companies.

He’s demanding that his  employees be extremely talented. Musk confirmed, “those writing great code  will constitute the majority of our team. ” Twitter is a software company at its  heart where engineers must be on the   alert when someone hacks the system,  or when a major bug crashes the system.

And if he wants to turn Twitter into the  “everything app” like what WeChat has   become in China, engineers will be the  ones tasked with adding new features. He believes a small group of  highly talented engineers can   be more effective than a large group  of engineers who are just pretty good. He explained during a Q & A with  Twitter employees: “If you look at,   say, the Tesla Autopilot AI  team, it’s about 150 engineers,   and they’re outperforming teams that they’re  competing against that are 3,000 engineers.

” So Twitter 2. 0 is relying on  a much smaller workforce to   get more done. They also have to deal  with setbacks after Musk’s overhaul.

There’s been a mass drop in revenue  as advertisers have pulled out,   unsure of the new direction under the new boss. Musk tried implementing an $8-a-month  subscription plan for people to be   verified but had to put it on hold after  some users started impersonating brands. And now, the company must brace  for what’s to come after Musk   allowed Donald Trump back on Twitter  in his promise to save free speech.

He reversed the ban on Trump  after his Twitter poll showed   people narrowly wanted the former president back. Other tech companies are watching Musk closely. They’ve suffered in the post-pandemic  world.

Meta recently laid off   11,000 workers. Amazon plans to cut thousands  of people, continuing layoffs in 2023. IF Musk can run a lean ship, and be profitable,   this will signal to other tech firms  that it’s possible to be lean and green.

But it will not be easy getting there. It’s hard working for Elon Musk. Take it from Dolly Singh, the former  head of talent acquisition at SpaceX,   who witnessed the failure of the third launch of  the Falcon 1, the predecessor to today’s Falcon 9.

By that point, Musk had burned through the $100  million he put into his private rocket company. Dolly Singh admitted on the question-and-answer  site Quora, “Working with him isn’t a comfortable   experience, he is never satisfied with himself so  he is never really satisfied with anyone around   him. He pushes himself harder and harder and he  pushes others around him the exact same way.

The   challenge is that he is a machine and the rest  of us aren’t. So if you work for Elon you have   to accept the discomfort. But in that discomfort  is the kind of growth you can’t get anywhere else,   and worth every ounce of blood and sweat.

” In the case of SpaceX, persistence paid off. An investment from a venture capital firm made it   possible for SpaceX to attempt a fourth  flight, which was ultimately successful. Stage separation confirmed!

SpaceX’s achievements are still being written. But   the road to get to today has  not been easy for employees. And neither will the road be easy  for employees at his latest company.