Elon Musk has said his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is working 120-hour weeks, just like the billionaire himself once did. Some executives believe he is trying to instill a Silicon Valley culture of overtime in the government.
Elon Musk has said his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is working 120-hour weeks, just like the billionaire himself once did. Some executives believe he is trying to instill a Silicon Valley culture of overtime in the government.
«DOGE works 120 hours a week. Our bureaucratic opponents optimistically work 40 hours a week. That’s why they lose so quickly,» Musk wrote on X (Twitter).
Business Insider reports that the day before, he had been extolling the benefits of working weekends. «Very few people in the bureaucracy actually work weekends, so it’s like the opposing team just takes 2 days off!» he wrote on X (Twitter).
120 hours per week is about 17 hours and 8 minutes of work per day, including Saturday and Sunday. DOGE previously gained access to the federal payment system, including Social Security and Medicare payments.
Operational efficiency expert Shannon Copeland believes that Musk’s approach may be the best way to quickly bring DOGE into the mainstream.
«Musk’s tweet underscores his well-known philosophy on work ethic and the inefficiency of bureaucracy. While a 120-hour workweek is not a practical or sustainable solution for most, the principle behind it resonates. Companies that prioritize efficiency, automation, and proactive cost management will always outperform those burdened by bureaucracy,» she commented on Musk’s approach.
Roy Ginat, CEO of Endless AI, which developed an artificial intelligence video assistant and raised $100 million, believes that Musk’s posts should not be taken literally.
«Managing a team too intensively for too long leads to fatigue and burnout. Many people simply cannot function well without enough sleep, and when fatigue sets in, errors increase. I believe Elon’s tweet is about effort, not a new standard in DOGE,» he noted.
Ginat added that he regularly works 85 hours a week and stated that work takes up most of his time, but great work ideas often come to him when he is walking with his children.
Musk is known for his relentless work ethic. In 2019, he said he worked 120-hour weeks and slept on the floor, and he expects his employees to work long hours as well. However, he later said he had returned to a more «sustainable» regime of 80 to 90 hours per week. When Musk officially took control of Twitter in October 2022, he immediately implemented an 80-hour workweek.
At the same time, Elon Musk is known for spending a lot of time posting on the social network, which he renamed X. He has also repeatedly mentioned that he loves video games and claimed to have completed Halo Infinite on legendary difficulty, and considers Terminator: Resistance «underrated.»
Musk also likes Cyberpunk 2077, but Elden Ring is his biggest fan. According to him, «it’s the most beautiful art» he’s ever seen. Elon Musk’s ex-wife, singer Grimes, told how the billionaire coped with the stress that came with the acquisition of the social network Twitter. According to her, Elon stayed up until 5:30 in the morning playing the soulslike Elden Ring.
Elon Musk holds executive positions at several major corporations and is also active in politics, but he still finds time for video games. His accounts rank high on the leaderboards for Diablo 4 and Path of Exile 2, but casual gamers doubt that Musk has actually played hundreds of hours of them, as he is confused about the basic game mechanics.
However, the billionaire later admitted that he gave other people access to his account in the game Path of Exile 2 so that they could level it up. In PoE 2, such account sharing is prohibited, and Musk’s account should be blocked.
«The weirdest thing to me is that he feels like he needs to brag about being a professional gamer for some reason. The dude sent a car his company designed into space on a rocket another company designed, why the hell does he need to brag about being a gamer?» one video gamer commented on Reddit.
