“Elon Musk Details ‘Excruciating’ Personal Toll of Tesla Turmoil”, 2018-08-16 (; backlinks):
Elon Musk was at home in Los Angeles, struggling to maintain his composure. “This past year has been the most difficult and painful year of my career”, he said. “It was excruciating.”
…In an hour-long interview with The New York Times, he choked up multiple times, noting that he nearly missed his brother’s wedding this summer and spent his birthday holed up in Tesla’s offices as the company raced to meet elusive production targets on a crucial new model.
Asked if the exhaustion was taking a toll on his physical health, Musk answered: “It’s not been great, actually. I’ve had friends come by who are really concerned.”
In the interview on Thursday, Musk alternated between laughter and tears. He said he had been working up to 120 hours a week recently—echoing the reason he cited in a recent public apology to an analyst whom he had berated. In the interview, Musk said he had not taken more than a week off since 2001, when he was bedridden with malaria. “There were times when I didn’t leave the factory for 3–4 days—days when I didn’t go outside”, he said. “This has really come at the expense of seeing my kids. And seeing friends.”
Musk stopped talking, seemingly overcome by emotion.
He turned 47 on June 28, and he said he spent the full 24 hours of his birthday at work. “All night—no friends, nothing”, he said, struggling to get the words out.
Two days later, he was scheduled to be the best man at the wedding of his brother, Kimbal, in Catalonia. Musk said he flew directly there from the factory, arriving just two hours before the ceremony. Immediately afterward, he got back on the plane and returned straight to Tesla headquarters, where work on the mass-market Model 3 has been all consuming. Musk paused again.
“I thought the worst of it was over—I thought it was”, he said. “The worst is over from a Tesla operational standpoint.” He continued: “But from a personal pain standpoint, the worst is yet to come.” He blamed short-sellers—investors who bet that Tesla’s shares will lose value—for much of his stress. He said he was bracing for “at least a few months of extreme torture from the short-sellers, who are desperately pushing a narrative that will possibly result in Tesla’s destruction.” [Narratives of persecution are common in bipolar; Kanye West believed rapper Jay-Z might send assassins after him.] Referring to the short-sellers, he added: “They’re not dumb guys, but they’re not super smart. They’re O.K. They’re smartish.”
…That morning, Musk woke up at home with his girlfriend, the musician known as Grimes, and had an early workout. Then he got in a Tesla Model S and drove himself to the airport. En route, Musk typed his fateful message…Musk reached the airport and flew on a private plane to Nevada, where he spent the day visiting a Tesla battery plant known as the Gigafactory, including time meeting with managers and working on an assembly line. That evening, he flew to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he held Tesla meetings late into the night…Musk has said he was referring to a potential investment by Saudi Arabia’s government investment fund. Musk had extensive talks with representatives of the $250 billion fund about possibly financing a transaction to take Tesla private—maybe even in a manner that would have resulted in the Saudis’ owning most of the company. One of those sessions took place on July 31 at the Tesla factory in the Bay Area, according to a person familiar with the meeting. But the Saudi fund had not committed to provide any cash, two people briefed on the discussions said.
…To help sleep when he is not working, Musk said he sometimes takes Ambien [a non-benzodiazepine often prescribed in bipolar disorder for insomnia]. “It is often a choice of no sleep or Ambien”, he said. But this has worried some board members, who have noted that sometimes the drug does not put Musk to sleep but instead contributes to late-night Twitter sessions, according to a person familiar with the board’s thinking. Some board members are also aware that Musk has on occasion used recreational drugs, according to people familiar with the matter.