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How Elon Musk Spends His Time

From Y Combinator · Published Jul 22, 2017 · Watch on YouTube

TL;DR

Musk spends ~80% of his time on engineering and design for SpaceX (Falcon 9, Dragon, Mars colonial architecture) and Tesla (Model 3, factory engineering), with half a day per week at OpenAI and half a day per week in Tesla’s design studio. He delegates business functions (legal, finance, sales) to COO Gwyn Shotwell.

Key insights

  • 80% of Musk’s time is spent on engineering and design for next-generation products, not on media or business activities.
  • At SpaceX, Gwyn Shotwell handles legal, finance, sales, and general business; Musk works exclusively with the engineering team on Falcon 9, Dragon, and Mars colony architecture.
  • At Tesla, Musk spends roughly half a day per week in the design studio on aesthetics/look-and-feel, and the rest of the week on engineering of the car itself and engineering of the factory.

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