Elon Musk has said the past year of his professional life has been “excruciating” and that stress over his business had caused his health to deteriorate. To make matters worse, the confession wiped billions off the value of Tesla, the electric car company he founded.
In an emotional interview with the New York Times, the founder of electric carmaker Tesla also revealed that the pressures of work had caused him to spend his birthday stuck in the Tesla factory and almost miss his brother’s wedding.
“This past year has been the most difficult and painful year of my career,” he said in the interview.
By early Friday afternoon, Tesla’s shares had fallen over 8%, wiping about $4bn off the company’s value.
Musk, whose company posted a record $709.6m net loss in the first quarter of this year while struggling to manufacture large numbers of its Model 3 mass-market electric car, said he had been working up to 120 hours a week and his health had been “not great”. He said his friends had been worried about him.
Musk said there were times he didn’t leave the factory for three or four days at a time and days when he didn’t go outside.
He said he spent the entire 24 hours of his 47th birthday in June at work and flew directly to his brother’s wedding, where he was due to be best man, from work, arriving two hours before the ceremony and leaving immediately afterwards.
For more read the full of article at The Guardian
