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Ask HN: If you work for Elon Musk, what keeps you motivated?

29 points by hedayet ↗ HN
Many brilliant people work for Musk at companies like Tesla and SpaceX. Given the recent controversies surrounding him, I'm genuinely curious—how do they stay motivated to do their best work?

60 comments

[ 6.0 ms ] story [ 132 ms ] thread
[dead] denuoweb
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ggm
Your answer has two parts. The first part is easy to agree with. The second part is contestable, but you obviously beleive it, and so it is easy to tie it to the first part, but really? They are two points not one.

The reality or otherwise of the press, does unfortunately (for your line of reasoning) affect motivations and outcomes. Tesla leadership will be reflecting on the sales trends. Most of their direction stems from forces outside their control in the classic sense: its market forces. But the other ones stem from politics, and like it or not, the leaders position in world politics IS affecting market views of his associated products.

It's interesting that its in cars, not batteries. The battery control logic and the stacks, the virtual power-plant models, they're too good. No amount of painting this IBM as a collaborator with dictators will prevent the sales there. But in the car space, it's not so clear.

Timing is everything. Starlink has leadership. Europe is reacting because of concerns from being excluded from the LEO marketspace. The news will be used, to influence investment, and attract staff to move. Not all staff who move will be the dumb rejects. People move for all kinds of reasons. It may include, dislike of the leadership.

fuzzfactor
Good catch.

Looks like the media controversies are driven more largely by false narratives from the "right" than anything that's really liberal or conservative in favor of America itself.

Definitely less basis in reality from that direction than from what's ill-defined as "liberal" today.

muzani
I'm not working for Musk, but the way I see it, he's funding a lot of research that someone couldn't get access to if they worked with say, BMW or NASA. So it makes sense that someone could be there to just learn and fail on someone else's dime before they do their own thing.
aqueueaqueue
You are saying you think his playbook at Doge is "This is fine".
denuoweb
The national debt ($36.22 T) is the total amount of outstanding borrowing by the U.S. Federal Government accumulated over the nation’s history.

Doge is doing what every other administration in history has failed to do.

aqueueaqueue
That is true, the debt is rediculous. Doge approach to fix it by firing people without knowing what they do is just stupid. It creates more cost long term.

To cut debt why not say... increase corporation tax. Fix healthcare so it isn't a rip off. Deconstruct the various complexes: military, prison etc. Stop giving money to Israel.

Let illegal immigrants stay because they pay tax without getting social security.

I don't think Trump and Elon are serious people.

dormento
> I don't think Trump and Elon are serious people.

I still can't get over the stupid name. "DOGE".

sejje
Stupidest name, I truly hate it.

Especially if we pronounce it "dough-ge"

In conversation, I feel forced to use the entire (non-acronym) name.

sejje
> Deconstruct the various complexes: military, prison etc

This is more-or-less (part of?) what DOGE purports to do. Just not the "complexes" that you want.

aqueueaqueue
The ones I want are a twofer: ethics and savings!
dworkr
"illegal immigrants stay because they pay tax without getting social security."

Why not just make it global? Shouldn't social security should be a human right. Also, why make laws around citizenship if you do not want them?

aqueueaqueue
Because it is a complex world of contradictions.
lawn
You know that what Doge is doing is a rounding error compared to the tax cuts the current administration is implementing?

So the net result is a gigantic increase to the already ridiculous national debt.

matt_s
The cost of employees in the Federal gov is less than 5% of the total Federal budget. There are already agencies with oversight of spending and Congress sets the budget usually in the fall timeframe but it varies per department/agency.

Firing/laying off non-political appointee federal employees, aka civil service employees, will do nearly nothing to save money. The Federal government isn't a software company where one of the most expensive things is the cost of people.

If the budget is about $6,000B per year, 5% of that is $300B and if the target is laying off 10%, you are talking $30B. It sounds like a lot of money to a person but that means your federal budget is now $5,970B.

Basic budgeting concepts - if you wanted to save a lot of money you wouldn't be looking at something which only accounts for 5% of your budget. It would be like if your personal debt keeps increasing each year and you have a $800/mo car payment, $4000/mo mortgage, etc. and think eliminating 1 coffee run per week will save you.

denuoweb
Have you seen doge.gov? It is not just about firing the do-nothing remote federal workers.
reaperducer
Have you seen doge.gov? It is not just about firing the do-nothing remote federal workers.

Have you bothered to look up the actual hard statistics that show that federal workers work more and harder than those in private sector companies?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/21/are-feder...

Warning: You will have to exit your echo chamber.

denuoweb
Tell me to exit my echo chamber as you post a liberal source for a liberal narrative, nice! Try finding factual statistics and report back, we will wait.
reaperducer
I ready both sides regularly, in order to keep an open mind. You should try it sometime.

The article contains links to the original research.

Are you lazy, or just afraid of facts?

I provided a reference refuting your assertion that federal workers are lazy. You don't appear to have anything to back up your position, or you world have replied with it. Instead you tried to steer the discussion in another direction. Lame.

andrei_says_
Just using this framing for remote workers exposes a bias which makes the conversation pointless.

DOGE Obliterating consumer protection agencies that cost next to nothing shows more about the intentions than any PR.

notahacker
That and cut to orgs like the IRS that exist to reduce the size of the deficit
Jtsummers
This will have major impacts on the deficit. Reducing revenue does not help close the gap when they're not also significantly reducing spending. If we aren't going to raise taxes, then enforcement needs to be maintained. Tariffs do bring in revenue, but at a cost (with the selected tariffs) to industries which will reduce income for companies and individuals so net we're likely to see reduced total revenue, but a shift in where revenue comes from. The deficit will probably go up the next few years with the current scheme between reducing IRS enforcement, reducing economic activity, and insignificant spending cuts.

This leaves only a few "natural" cuts that will be very unpopular, but needed to come close to balancing the budget: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. DOD cuts will reduce military readiness at a time when we'll either need it (Taiwan) or be abandoning our military dominance. But even cutting DOD spending by 100% wouldn't clear the deficit itself so other things have to be cut.

This year's DOD spending is $318 billion so far, and the deficit is $839 billion. Cutting DOD spending by 100% would still have left a $500 billion deficit.

https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...

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reaperducer
Doge is doing what every other administration in history has failed to do.

Here's a fun exercise: Go look up how much of that debt was incurred during the previous Trump administration.

Go ahead and look. We'll wait.

denuoweb
We are in 2025 now. DEI has been born and died since the administration you refer to, let alone there was no DOGE at that time. Have another hot take?
reaperducer
I'll take that as an admission that you didn't even bother to look.
aqueueaqueue
So we can't look at the presidents track record because it's different this time TM
TheAlchemist
Everybody agrees the deficit is too big.

The problem people have with DOGE, is that it's in itself a fraud. Musk empire is based on government contracts and subsides. And somwehow, he's now deciding what's being cut.

As for fraud that DOGE is uncovering, can you point to some real fraud they found ? Not some bullshit tweets or their website riddled with 'mistakes'.

If they found real fraud, there should be indictments. There are 0 for now. 0.

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akudha
Little basis in reality? Elon has been lying about Tesla features for years. Tesla is massively overvalued almost exclusively due to his antics and pumping up the stock. And on and on
anon743448
Reminds me of people in abusive relationships. From outside everyone wonders why they are not getting away from their abusers. But inside, the victims believe there is nowhere else to go.
LightBug1
So legitimate concerns about how democracy functions are 'liberal narratives' .... got it.

Bend over far enough and you'll be able to see your back at some point. Impressive.

jasondigitized
If you consider what Philip Low said about him liberal narrative, sure, ok.
paulcole
Just look at the evolution of the Autopilot page on Tesla.com over the years.

Talk about lies stacked upon lies.

[dead] _rm
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ggm
I worked for a company with truly awful leadership once. Only one person was brave enough to be overt how they would not tolerate it, but the general IT staff were more broadly unhappy, directly because of that leadership. He was a Neuro-Linguistic Programming nutcase, and had an outstanding sexual harrassment case from his prior role. I think about that a lot, in this current situation.

TL;DR people do get motivated or de-motivated by leadership.

aurareturn
It's not. I worked at a startup with a terrible CEO who was more lucky than smart, had sexual harassment case, put a family member as head of HR, and generally disliked. It definitely demotivated people.
_rm
Well your post read more like an Elon grumble, but in that case:

You narrow your work focus to those things you think will play well in next job interview. You put your efforts into doing a good job of them so can show off learnings from those projects.

Now you're not working for that boss, you're working to ditch them.

aurareturn
Doesn't matter. It demotivated the company since the company succeeding puts the disliked CEO in more power.

Just human nature at work.

rvnx
It could be that if you work there, you show that you can withstand the pressure as some sort of modern slave.

-> It shows that you can do hard work and that you can be productive.

-> It actually increases your odds to get hired at one of these modern and well-paid retirement houses like Google or Meta.

(I believe it seriously, it's not sarcasm from my perspective)

rabidonrails
Maybe you don't care as much about politics (for or against) and instead care about working on something at the bleeding edge.

If you want to work for a company on the bleeding edge then it's hards to find one further than a Musk company.

dworkr
Unless it's the government. But Elon is addressing that.
JohnFen
I have to assume that anyone still working for a Musk company is fine with Musk's behaviors.
exhaze
It would be great to hear from actual folks working for one of his companies rather than folks that presume that they can speak on behalf of those people, and, even worse, go so far as to liken them to "people in abusive relationships".
NewUser76312
Tangentially, as a contractor.

I've always been and remain a big fan of Musk's business acumen and initiatives. Being involved in some small way to help realize the future is tremendously rewarding.

None of the political stuff or "media controversies" bother me. I lean Right myself, am tired of progressive nonsense circa ~2012, and have seen the MSM been caught in lie after lie after lie over the past 20 years (and the lies almost always lean one way). Going after bureaucracy and government efficiency is incredibly important, even if done in a somewhat haphazard manner. These institutions become cancerous and waste tremendous taxpayer resources, they need some chemotherapy.

Well OP, you asked, I answered, I wonder if HN is mature enough to discuss such a topic without excessively downvoting the political minority here.

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zfg
> I lean Right myself

But surely not this far right: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smQNNo2a9xc

> have seen the MSM been caught in lie after lie after lie over the past 20 years

You mean like Musk has told lie after lie over the past 20 years?

> Going after bureaucracy and government efficiency is incredibly important

Nothing DOGE is doing is about efficiency. They're not trying to understand or improve any of it. They're just haphazardly throwing it away. Like this with ebola prevention:

https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-suggests-he-alone-decides-what...

goatlover
What has convinced you that the government bureaucracy is cancerous and wastes tremendous taxpayer resources? Have you talked to civil servants about what they do, what sort of services their agencies provide?
dttze
A lot of engineering types lack morals, which is why you see so many horrible things being made in this world.

Remember, our space program was lead by a former Nazi who was happy to use slave labor.

elongateduserna
Throwaway acct for obvious reasons

I worked at The Boring Company at a relatively high ranking role. I stayed as long as I did because I loved the challenge - deadlines are crazy, and its a high stress high reward environment. Until the work started impacting my personal life, I didn't really have a problem with it. Steve Davis is a micromanager to the extreme, which is one of the worst parts of the job. If you perform well in the environment, you're rewarded for it by getting less oversight by Steve. It's an incentive to stick with the company. In addition, my ISO package was very handsome.

I left due to the previously mentioned personal life impacts, and the increasing political bias of the company. I'm relatively left leaning, and prior to the election, Elon visited and stated that it was crucial that Trump won to secure the future of the company for deregulation. Steve Davis also kept leaning onto this in our all hands. All in all, it just became too much for me.

divan
> you're rewarded for it by getting less oversight by Steve. It's an incentive to stick with the company

Is it by design, or it just how it worked with that particular person?

fragmede
SpaceX is the leading rocket agency in the world. That that might be someone you don't like at the helm is secondary. If you're a world renowned rocket scientist, where else would you want to work? Boeing? Move to China? A theoretical SpaceX that didn't have Elon Musk at the helm? Blue Origin? Not to denigrate the people that work at either of those, but building the Falcon 9 is something I'd be proud to tell my kids, if I was a rocket scientist.