In 2018, Elon Musk was pulling all-nighters and sleeping at Tesla Inc’s (TSLA.O) factories in Nevada and California as the company grappled to build up production of the Model 3.
On Monday, Musk said he had toiled through the night at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters and would continue “working & sleeping here” until the social media platform – which he recently purchased for $44 billion – was fixed.
A self-proclaimed “nanomanager,” Musk’s liking for working around the clock in moments of crisis has been a notable part of his brand. But the billionaire’s in-depth analysis of Twitter, after a protracted acquisition that he attempted to ditch, has some Tesla investors concerned about his capacity to concentrate on his role as CEO of the world’s most valuable carmaker.
“Tesla investors are going to be frustrated,” said Gene Munster, managing partner at venture capital firm Loup Ventures. “He’s probably going to spend more time on Twitter than any Tesla investor feels comfortable about.”
Musk, who is scheduled to testify in court on Wednesday about whether a $56 billion pay package at Tesla is reasonable, would not reply to a Reuters email asking for comment.
He tweeted on Monday “I have Tesla covered too,” saying he intended to work at the electric vehicle maker for part of this week. Tesla has a factory in Fremont, California, and an office in Palo Alto, California.
Shares of Tesla have plunged by 50% since early April, when he announced he had amassed a stake in Twitter. Sales of Musk’s own Tesla shares – adding up to $20 billion since he announced his Twitter stake – have intensified pressure.
Tesla experiences a wide list of challenges from demand concerns in China to a regulatory probe of the claims it makes about the abilities of its “Autopilot” driver assistance technology in the United States. So far this month, Musk’s tweets about his efforts to reboot Twitter have made up more than two-thirds of his postings on the social media platform he took over last month, according to a Reuters tally.
Tesla made up just 3% of his tweets from Nov. 1 to Nov. 15, a drop from an average of almost 16% over the past eight months.
Munster said he believes Twitter will take up Musk’s attention for the next six to 12 months, adding that Tesla was a more advanced company than in prior days and less immediately dependent on Musk.
In recent days, Musk has said his workload has expanded greatly after his Twitter acquisition.
“I have too much work on my plate,” he said by video link to a business conference in Indonesia on Monday, saying he was working “from morning till night seven days a week.”
“Once Twitter is set on the right path, I think it is a much easier thing to manage than SpaceX or Tesla,” Musk said earlier in November at the Baron Investment Conference, pointing to the aerospace company which he also runs.
Tesla investor Ross Gerber, a strong supporter of Musk, said on Tuesday that Tesla needed to obtain a deputy for its multitasking CEO.
“I think he’s finally reached a point where he’s really challenging himself. I think they need to find the right person. And quite frankly, they just don’t have that person.”
‘Minimal Time’
The Tesla board has raised concerns about Musk’s commitment to SpaceX and other smaller companies. Tesla board chair Robyn Denholm said in a 2018 email that the “minimal time” Musk was spending at Tesla was “becoming more and more problematic,” based on court documents concerning his pay trial.
A Tesla shareholder says the board failed in agreeing to a $56 billion pay package for him without asking for his full-time attention. Another board member, Ira Ehrenpreis, mentioned at trial that Musk was paid for results, not time spent, a view reiterated by Musk in a 2021 deposition.
At Tesla’s annual meeting in August, Musk answered a question about “key-man risk” by commending his colleagues, saying “We do have a very talented team here. So I think Tesla would continue to do very well even if I was kidnapped by aliens or went back to my home planet maybe.”
Buy Crypto NowMusk has discredited his doubters before and some early investors say they expect him to rise to the Twitter challenge. Billionaire investor Tim Draper told Reuters:
“When you get an entrepreneur that does all that he’s done, we should just be kissing his feet. The guy is awesome.”
But others have run out of patience.
“Musk has managed to do what the bears have unsuccessfully tried for years – crush Tesla’s stock,” Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives, a long-time Tesla bull, said in a note last week.
Ives labeled Twitter an “albatross,” a “distraction” and a “money pit” for Musk. “The Twitter circus show is slowly starting to impact the pristine EV brand of Tesla,” he said.
