Elon Musk says he’s back to sleeping in office, calls it ‘wartime mode’

Elon Musk returns to his extreme work routine, citing rising pressure across Tesla, X, and SpaceX.Elon Musk has resumed his famously intense work schedule, declaring that he is now in “wartime mode” and working seven days a week. In a post shared on X, Musk revealed he is back to sleeping in the office whenever his children are not with him.

“Back to working 7 days a week and sleeping in the office if my little kids are away,” Musk wrote, reposting an older video that referred to him as a “Wartime CEO.” The clip, originally from the days when Tesla faced a financial crisis, shows Musk reflecting emotionally on the toll of working excessively. “No one should put these many hours into work. This is not good. This is very painful. It hurts my brain and my heart,” he says in the video.

The return to this demanding lifestyle comes at a time when Musk is juggling high-stakes developments across his various ventures, including Tesla, SpaceX, X (formerly Twitter), and his AI and government initiatives.

This is not new for the billionaire entrepreneur. Musk has frequently spoken about his intense work hours, especially during moments of operational or financial stress. In February 2025, he claimed he and his team at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) were working 120-hour weeks, contrasting that with what he described as the 40-hour pace of “bureaucratic opponents.”

In a 2018 interview on CBS’ 60 Minutes, Musk recalled working 120 hours a week and sleeping at Tesla’s factory during the Model 3 production crisis. “It was life or death. We were losing $50 [million], sometimes $100 million a week. Running out of money,” he told Lesley Stahl. He also told Gayle King in another interview that he chose to sleep at the factory because he didn’t believe in asking employees to endure hardships while he took time off.

In a 2022 conversation with investor Ron Baron, Musk revealed he had spent three years living in Tesla’s Fremont and Nevada factories, sometimes sleeping on a tent on the roof or under his desk. “It was damn uncomfortable sleeping on that floor,” he said. “And always, when I woke up, I’d smell like metal dust.”

Musk’s extreme work culture has often extended to his employees. After acquiring Twitter in late 2022, he sent a company-wide email demanding staff commit to “long hours at high intensity” or leave with severance. The San Francisco headquarters was reportedly turned into a quasi-dormitory, prompting an investigation by the city’s Department of Building Inspection. In response to criticism, Musk posted on X, “So the city of SF attacks companies providing beds for tired employees instead of making sure kids are safe from fentanyl.”