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Elon Musk regularly held meetings at 1am: Ex-employee defends billionaire
A techie who spent over two years at X (formerly Twitter) and reported directly to Elon Musk has defended the billionaire over criticisms about his work ethic.
A techie who spent over two years at X (formerly Twitter) and reported directly to Elon Musk has defended the billionaire over criticisms about his work ethic. Chris Bakke was responding to United States Representative Teresa Leger Fernández who tweeted that “any school teacher has more work ethic in their pinky finger than Elon Musk has in his entire body.”
Who is Chris Bakke?
Bakke is the founder and former CEO of Laskie, a job search platform that was acquired by Twitter in 2023. It was one of Elon Musk’s first acquisitions for Twitter after he bought the social media platform.
After the acquisition, Bakke spent two years at Twitter — later rebranded X — reporting directly to Elon Musk.
Ex-employee defends Musk
Bakke hit back at Fernández for claiming that Musk has no work ethic. He revealed that the billionaire owner of Tesla, SpaceX and X regularly works over 12 hours every day and survives on naps instead of getting proper sleep.
Bakke revealed that Musk held product meetings at X in the evenings, around 5 or 6 pm, because he spent the first 10 hours of the day at Tesla.
In fact, his own one-on-one check-in with Musk was scheduled for 10 pm but was often pushed back to midnight or even 1 am because the billionaire had such a busy schedule.
“When I reported to Elon, we would have X product meetings at 5 or 6pm (because he was with the Tesla team for 10 hours before that), then my 1:1 checkin would be at 10pm, but that would regularly get moved to 11pm or midnight or 1am,” Bakke said.
Elon Musk’s sleep schedule
Chris Bakke added that Musk went for a power nap around 2 am every day, and repeated his gruelling schedule week after week.
“Usually around 2am, he’d go take a nap for a couple hours in the office and then repeat the same schedule again the next day with a different set of companies, 7 days a week,” he added.
Elon Musk is known for having a famously intense work schedule. He once told podcast host Joe Rogan that he gets “about six hours” of sleep every day.
In a 2023 CNBC interview, he said getting under six hours gives him “brain pain,” so he now makes an effort to hit 6‑hour minimum.
“I’ve tried [to sleep] less, but ... even though I’m awake more hours, I get less done,” Musk said. “And the brain pain level is bad if I get less than six hours [of sleep per night].”
(Also read: Elon Musk has been sleeping ‘on the floor’ of his EEOB Gov office near the White House)
