Elon Musk might be the richest man in the world, but it takes a lot of effort to get — and remain — there.
David Sacks, the recently appointed US AI and crypto czar under the Trump administration, offered a rare glimpse into Elon Musk’s legendary work ethic during a recent conversation. Sacks, who has known Musk since their PayPal days in the early 2000s, revealed that the Tesla and SpaceX CEO routinely works into the early hours of the morning, combining relentless dedication with an unusual level of technical depth that sets him apart from other executives.
The 2am Work Sessions
“He just still works incredibly hard,” Sacks said. “I visited him recently as well and I think I left around midnight and he was still going. I think he must have gone until 2:00 AM or something like that. So I don’t know anybody who works as hard as him, and I don’t think there’s anybody who not only works as hard as he does, but works how he does.”
According to Sacks, what makes Musk exceptional isn’t just the hours he puts in, but the intensity and focus he brings to his work. “It just is such an unusual cadence, tremendous focus. And he’s really in the technical details of it,” Sacks noted, emphasizing that Musk operates differently from typical CEOs who might delegate technical matters entirely to their teams.
Deep Dive Into Twitter’s Technology
Sacks had a front-row seat to Musk’s working style during the tumultuous Twitter acquisition in 2022. Having not worked closely with Musk for about two decades since their PayPal days, Sacks got to observe how his approach had evolved — or perhaps, remained consistently intense.
“When he bought Twitter and did that transition, I got to see him work in a different way,” Sacks recalled. “What I saw him do was really get to the bottom of the technology. I think he spent about a month really drilling into every system in the company. And I could see him kind of putting together his mental model of how the whole thing worked, and eventually had the whole thing in his head. And then he felt like he could manage it in the way that he wanted.”
The Musk Method
Elon’s mother, Maye Musk, also chimed in to David Sacks’ comments. “Same. When I last visited Elon, I sat in on his Saturday meetings with enthusiastic and different groups every hour. Although the meetings are fascinating and mesmerizing, I only lasted until 11 PM,” she wrote on X. As per Marc Andreessen, Musk has also spent 18 hours doing 5-minute 1 on 1s with xAI’s staff last year.
Sacks’ observations align with numerous reports of Musk’s management style across his various ventures. When Musk acquired Twitter (now X) for $44 billion in October 2022, he immediately embarked on a dramatic restructuring that saw the company’s workforce reduced by approximately 80%. His hands-on approach extended to sleeping at the office, reviewing code line-by-line, and personally interviewing engineers to understand the platform’s technical architecture.
This pattern of deep technical immersion has been consistent across Musk’s companies. At Tesla, he’s known for camping out on factory floors during production challenges, famously sleeping under his desk during the “production hell” of the Model 3 ramp-up. At SpaceX, he serves as chief engineer and is involved in detailed design decisions for rockets and spacecraft.
The work ethic Sacks describes also reflects broader questions about sustainable leadership practices in Silicon Valley. While Musk’s approach has delivered extraordinary results — Tesla’s dominance in electric vehicles, SpaceX’s revolution in space launch costs, and X’s ongoing transformation — it also represents an extreme that few can or should emulate. Musk himself has acknowledged the personal toll, previously stating that he sometimes works 120-hour weeks during critical periods. But if you’re looking to change the course of the human race through space travel and electric vehicles, 120-hour workdays might be well worth it.