San Francisco, Nov. 16 (BNA): In 2018, Elon Musk has been working all night and sleeping at Tesla Inc’s factories in California and Nevada as the company struggles to ramp up Model 3 production.
On Monday, Musk said he worked all night at Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco and would continue to “work and sleep here” until the social media platform — which he recently acquired for $44 billion — is fixed.
Described as a “nano-manager,” Musk’s penchant for working long hours in moments of crisis has been a well-known part of his trademark. But the billionaire’s deep dive into Twitter, after a drawn-out buyout he tried to cancel, has some Tesla investors worried about his ability to focus on his role as CEO of the world’s most important automaker.
“Tesla investors will be disappointed,” said Gene Munster, managing partner at venture capital firm Loup Ventures. “He probably spends more time on Twitter than any Tesla investor would feel comfortable with.”
Musk, who is expected to testify in court on Wednesday about whether Tesla’s $56 billion pay package, did not respond to an email from Reuters seeking comment.
“Tesla has you covered too,” he wrote on Twitter on Monday, saying he plans to work at the electric car maker for part of this week. Tesla has an office in Palo Alto, California, and a factory in Fremont, California.
Tesla shares have fallen 50% since early April, when he revealed he had acquired a stake in Twitter. Sales of Musk’s Tesla stock — totaling $20 billion since he disclosed his stake in Twitter — added to the pressure.
Tesla faces a growing list of challenges from demand concerns in China to a regulatory investigation into claims it makes about its “Autopilot” driver-assist technology capabilities in the United States.
So far this month, Musk’s tweets about his efforts to restart Twitter have accounted for more than two-thirds of his posts on the platform than he did in October, according to a Reuters tally.
Tesla accounted for just 3% of his tweets from November 1 to November 15, down from an average of nearly 16% over the previous eight months.
EAE