El País Editorial Entrepreneur Elon Musk is not only the CEO of Tesla, X, and SpaceX, but also heads the United States Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), promoted by Republican President Donald Trump to cut US government spending. From this administrative position, Musk claims that his DOGE employees work 120 hours per week. Considering that a week has 168 hours, that would mean that Elon Musk’s employees would have no more than 6.8 hours of sleep each night, according to a calculation by the Fortune website. This same outlet adds that the scientific consensus warns against working more than 55 hours per week and sleeping less than seven hours per night. Despite this, Musk is convinced that success in the workplace lies in working more than 40 hours per week, and he expressed this on his X account, in which he stated: “Our bureaucratic opponents work 40 hours a week, being optimistic. That’s why they are losing so fast.”
Elon Musk Requires His Employees to Work 120 Hours a Week and Weekends as Well
In addition to requiring his employees to work 120 hours per week, Musk stated on X that DOGE members must also be willing to work weekends.
“Very few in the bureaucracy work weekends, so it’s like the opposing team just left the field for two days,” Musk wrote on his X account on February 1, 2025, adding, “Working on the weekend is a superpower.”
This is an idea Musk had previously championed on the DOGE X account on November 14, 2024.
“We don’t need more part-time idea generators. We need small-government revolutionaries with sky-high IQs, willing to work 80+ hours a week on unglamorous spending cuts,” the Musk-led entity stated at the time.
Musk has hinted that his idea of forcing his employees to work weekends is not limited to DOGE, but that he also does it at X.
