Elon Musk claims every minute of his thinking makes Tesla $1m

Entrepreneur recalled 30 minute meeting where he made electric car company $100m

Elon Musk says that every minute of his thinking helps make Tesla $1m.

The South African-born entrepreneur admitted that he worked “to the edge of sanity” for the electric vehicle manufacturer and aerospace transportation company SpaceX.

And he recalled a 30-minute meeting where says he “improved the financial outcome” of the company by $100m.

“The thing that does make sleeping difficult is that, every good hour or even minute of thinking about Tesla and SpaceX has such a big effect on the company that I really try to work as much as possible you know, to the edge of sanity basically,” he told head of TED Chris Anderson in a new interview.

“Tesla is getting to the point where, or probably will get to the point later this year, that every good, every high quality minute of thinking is a $1m dollar impact on Tesla, which is insane.”

“If Tesla is doing $2bn a week in revenue, that’s $300m a day, seven days a week. There are many instances where a half hour meeting, where I was able to improve the financial outcome of the company by $100m in a half hour meeting.”

Mr Musk, who last week launched a stunning $43bn bid to buy Telsa, addressed his position as the world’s richest person with a reported personal fortune of $251bn.

“It would be very problematic if I was consuming billions of dollars a year in personal consumption but that is not the case,” he said.

“In fact I don’t even own a home right now. I’m literally staying at friends’ places. I don’t have a yacht. I don’t really take vacations, so it’s not as if my personal consumption is high.

“The one exception is the plane, but if I don’t use the plane then I have less hours to work.”