Tesla would consider buying the factories that General Motors intends to idle, CEO Elon Musk said in an interview that aired on CBS' "60 Minutes."

"It's possible that we would be interested. If they were going to sell a plant or not use it that we would take it over," he said.

In a wide-ranging interview with Lesley Stahl, Musk made no apologies for his erratic behavior over the summer and reiterated his lack of respect for the Securities and Exchange Commission, which sued him in September for allegedly defrauding investors after tweeting that he wanted to take the company public at $420 a share and had "funding secured." He didn't and pulled back on those plans a few weeks later.

"Nobody's perfect," he said.

Musk acknowledged that he was "somewhat impulsive," adding that he "didn't really want to try to adhere to some CEO template." He stoked controversy all summer with his erratic behavior, taunting the SEC, calling a diver in the Thai cave rescue a "pedo" and capping the summer by appearing to smoke pot on the Joe Rogan podcast.

"I'm just being me. I mean, I was certainly under insane stress and crazy, crazy hours. But the system would have failed if I was truly erratic," Musk said.

The SEC forced Musk to step down as chairman of the board for three years. The company named Robyn Denholm, who was already on the board, as chairwoman.

"I want to be clear: I do not respect the SEC," Musk said. "I do not respect them." But he said he was adhering to the agreement because he respects the U.S. justice system.

He scoffed at the idea that Denholm was put in place to keep him in line. "Yeah. It, it's not realistic in the sense that I am the largest shareholder in the company. And I can just call for a shareholder vote and get anything done that I want," Musk said.

He said he does not want to return to the role of chairman. "I actually just prefer to have no titles at all."

Tesla has struggled to ramp up production of its much hyped Model 3 midsize sedan. The company resorted to building a second assembly line inside a tent-like structure next to its main assembly plant in Fremont, California. The decision, like many Tesla has made, was ridiculed by some in the industry.

The last-minute push increased production by 50 percent, Musk told CBS.

"Those betting against the company were right by all conventional standards that we would fail," he said, "but they just did not count on this unconventional situation of creating a second assembly in the parking lot in a tent."

Musk said the long-awaited $35,000 version of the Model 3 will "probably" be available in five to six months. That is the price of the vehicle Tesla originally promised would be an electric sedan for the masses when it was first unveiled in March 2016. Since then, however, Tesla has only made higher-priced versions of the car.

Musk admitted he is notorious for missing deadlines.

"Well, I mean punctuality's not my strong suit. I think, uh well, why would people think that if I've been late on all the other models, that'd I'd be suddenly on time with this one," he said.

WATCH: How taxpayers have helped Elon Musk and Tesla

Read more from the original source:

Elon Musk says Tesla would consider buying idled GM plants

After turning its second-ever quarterly profit, Tesla has its eyes on expansion.

Earlier this week, Reuters reported the company had begun the construction process on its first "Gigafactory" outside the US in China.

Meanwhile, CEO Elon Musk told CBS' "60 Minutes" in an interview that Tesla would be open to activating plants idled by automakers like General Motors, which last month announced it would stop building cars at three factories in North America.

"It's possible that we would be interested, if they were going to sell a plant or not use it, that we would take it over," he told reporter Lesley Stahl in a preview released by the network ahead of the episode's broadcast on Sunday.

Read more: Tesla's factory is a 'crowded mess,' according to its most bullish Wall Street analyst, who says production is about 30% below the original target

As Business Insider's Matthew DeBord pointed out, Tesla's single factory in Fremont, California, is incredibly far from the US auto-manufacturing hubs near Detroit and southern states, like Tennessee, where foreign companies have established plants.

A manufacturing presence closer to other factories could help with infrastructure, equipment, and expertise.

"The whole point of Tesla is to accelerate the advancement of electric vehicles and sustainable transport," Musk added in the interview. "We're trying to help the environment; it's the most serious problem that humanity faces."

The full interview will air Sunday evening on CBS.

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Elon Musk: Tesla interested in buying idled GM plant ...

The Tesla cofounder got in hot water with the Securities and Exchange Commission this summer and explains to Lesley Stahl how his tweeting has been reined in as a result. For the full interview, click here: https://cbsn.ws/2UB9O5c

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---"60 Minutes," the most successful television broadcast in history. Offering hard-hitting investigative reports, interviews, feature segments and profiles of people in the news, the broadcast began in 1968 and is still a hit, over 50 seasons later, regularly making Nielsen's Top 10. "60 Minutes" has won more Emmy Awards than any other primetime broadcast, including a special Lifetime Achievement Emmy. It has also won every major broadcast journalism award over its tenure, including 24 Peabody and 18 DuPont Columbia University awards for excellence in television broadcasting. Other distinguished awards won multiple times include the George Polk, RTNDA Edward R. Murrow, Investigative Reporters and Editors, RFK Journalism, Sigma Delta Chi and Gerald Loeb Awards for Distinguished Business and Financial Reporting. "60 Minutes" premiered on CBS Sept. 24, 1968. The correspondents and contributors of "60 Minutes" are Bill Whitaker, Steve Kroft, Scott Pelley, Lesley Stahl, Anderson Cooper, Sharyn Alfonsi, Jon Wertheim and Norah O'Donnell. "60 Minutes" airs Sundays at 7 p.m. ET/PT. Check your local listings.

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Elon Musk: "I have no respect for the SEC"

Elon Musk, the CEO of the electric car company Tesla, has been called a genius, a visionary. But this year he got less noticed for his brilliance than his behavior, with stories about self-inflicted wounds: like capricious tweeting and public pot smoking. The 47-year-old billionaire has said 2018 has been "excruciating," "the most painful year of my career."

When he joined as co-founder of the company 14 years ago, he had no experience in the auto industry. He was guided by a dream: to build cars that don't harm the environment in an effort to save the planet. But this year Musk had to save his company. Tesla had been losing money for nearly its entire existence, its debt is in the billions, and it was bleeding cash. Everything was riding on its ability to mass produce its new sedan: the Model 3, an affordable so-called "everyman" car.

Correspondent Lesley Stahl speaks with Elon Musk

But over the summer, when Elon Musk was in "production hell," as he called it, working round the clock to make enough Model 3s to show a profit, he began acting, well, weird.

Lesley Stahl: There are people who say that the company cannot survive without you. And--

Elon Musk: Oh, I don't think that's true. Yeah.

Lesley Stahl: --there are people who say the company cannot survive with you.

Elon Musk: Hah hah. That's hilarious.

Lesley Stahl: They say it's because of the way you acted over the summer doing things that seemed impulsive, un-CEO-ish?

Elon Musk: Well, first of all, I, I am somewhat impulsive. And I didn't really want to try to adhere to some CEO template.

Well, he certainly accomplished that. Especially this past year when he began picking needless fights on social media. He called a diver of the Thai cave rescue a "pedo" as in pedophile. He sold 20,000 flamethrowers online and he smoked weed during a podcast.

Lesley Stahl: What about the pot?

Elon Musk: I do not smoke pot, as anyone who watched that podcast could tell, I have no idea how to smoke pot. Or anything. I don't know to smoke anything, honestly.

Lesley Stahl: Here are some of the words written about you.

Elon Musk: Yeah, sure.

Lesley Stahl: Not-- not the whole time--

Elon Musk: It's a lot of words! (LAUGH)

Lesley Stahl: --over this summer. Erratic, unstable, reckless, operatic.

Elon Musk: Operatic? Ah, that's not bad, actually. I kinda like that one. I'm just being me. I mean, I was certainly under insane stress and crazy, crazy hours. But the system would have failed if I was truly erratic.

Lesley Stahl: You tweet a lot.

Elon Musk: I use my tweets to express myself. (LAUGHTER)

Lesley Stahl: Yes. Oh my God--

Elon Musk: Some people use their hair. (LAUGHTER) I use t-- I use Twitter.

Lesley Stahl: Well, but you use your tweeting to kind of get back at critics.

Elon Musk: Rarely.

Lesley Stahl: You kind of have little wars with the press.

Elon Musk: Twitter's a war zone. If somebody's gonna jump in the warzone, it's, like, "Okay, you're in the arena. Let's go!"

His warzone tweeting drew fire when out of the blue in August he tweeted, quote: "Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured." The SEC disputed that claim and charged him with securities fraud. The case was settled with Musk agreeing that his "communications relating to the company including Twitter" would be overseen by his board.

Lesley Stahl: Have you had any of your tweets censored since the settlement?

Elon Musk: No.

Lesley Stahl: None? Does someone have to read them before they go out?

Elon Musk: No.

Lesley Stahl: So your tweets are not supervised?

Elon Musk: The only tweets that would have to be say reviewed would be if a tweet had a probability of causing a movement in the stock.

Lesley Stahl: And that's it?

Elon Musk: Yeah, I mean otherwise it's, "Hello, First Amendment." Like Freedom of Speech is fundamental.

Lesley Stahl: But how do they know if it's going to move the market if they're not reading all of them before you send them?

Elon Musk: Well, I guess we might make some mistakes. Who knows?

Lesley Stahl: Are you serious?

Elon Musk: Nobody's perfect.

Lesley Stahl: Look at you.

Elon Musk: I want to be clear. I do not respect the SEC. I do not respect them.

Lesley Stahl: But you're abiding by the settlement, aren't you?

Elon Musk: Because I respect the justice system.

Abiding also meant he had to relinquish his position as chairman of the Tesla board. He's been replaced by board member Robyn Denholm.

Lesley Stahl: Did you handpick her?

Elon Musk: Yes.

Lesley Stahl: The impression was that she was put in to kind of watch over you.

Elon Musk: Yeah, I mean that's not realistic. I mean I'm the largest--

Lesley Stahl: Like a babysitter--

Elon Musk: Yeah. It-- it's not realistic in the sense that I am the largest shareholder in the company. And I can just call for a shareholder vote and get anything done that I want.

Lesley Stahl: So do you think you'll want to go back to being-- to being chair?

Elon Musk: No, I don't think I actually just prefer to have no titles at all.

With or without titles, there's something larger than life about Elon Musk. He has a cult following. One of Silicon Valley's most successful and versatile entrepreneurs, he has, beyond cars, built powerful rockets with reusable boosters, this one launched a record 64 satellites into orbit. He's digging a tunnel deep underground to deal with traffic congestion. And in each case, he started a company.

Lesley Stahl: Did you have a lot of money? Did your family give you a lot of money to start all of this?

Elon Musk: No.

Lesley Stahl: You grew up in South Africa.

Elon Musk: Yes.

Lesley Stahl: Yeah.

Elon Musk: I left when I was 17, by myself. I had a backpack of clothes and a suitcase of books. And that's it.

Lesley Stahl: Did you have a happy childhood?

Elon Musk: No, it was terrible.

Lesley Stahl: Are you serious?

Elon Musk: Yes.

Lesley Stahl: Why was it terrible?

Elon Musk: It was very violent. It was not a happy childhood.

Lesley Stahl: I do know that you were bullied at school.

Elon Musk: I was almost beaten to death, if you would call that bullied.

And he's described his father as emotionally abusive.

Elon Musk: My father has serious issues.

Lesley Stahl: OK. Well, so you didn't have a happy childhood.

Elon Musk: No.

It's no surprise then that as an adult he's a fighter, determined to succeed and prove everyone wrong, as when he waged a battle this year to avoid Tesla's bankruptcy by boosting production of its newest electric car, the Model 3. At the factory in Fremont, California, he complained bitterly about all the naysayers and critics who were gunning for his failure.

Elon Musk: There's been relentless criticism, relentless and outrageous and unfair. Because what actually happened here was an incredible American success story. All these people work their ass off day and night to make it happen. And they believe in the dream. And that's the story that really should be told.

The story is how he set and met the production target of 5,000 Model 3s a week and made Tesla profitable. But the effort nearly bankrupted the company.

Elon Musk: If you're trying to step up to something which is, you know, 1,000 percent more than any other program that you've ever done, it's necessarily-- you have to bet the company. There's no option.

Lesley Stahl: So in other words, if you hadn't met it, you would have died?

Elon Musk: It was life or death. We were losing $50, sometimes $100 million a week. Running out of money.

Lesley Stahl: You were losing $100 million a week?

Elon Musk: Yeah. That's scary.

His two assembly lines weren't churning out cars fast enough. Failure was imminent, until his lightbulb moment, create a third assembly line in a big tent in the Tesla parking lot.

Elon Musk: This whole thing that you see here was a pretty miraculous effort by the team to create a general assembly line out of nothing in three weeks.

Lesley Stahl: This went up in three weeks.

Elon Musk: Yeah. So those, you know, betting against the company were right by all conventional standards that we would fail. But they just did not count on this unconventional situation of creating an assembly line in a parking lot in a tent.

Lesley Stahl: And this last minute push.

Elon Musk: It increased our output by 50 percent.

Musk was a champion of automation. So his original assembly lines were full of robots. But the robots kept breaking down. Walk along this new line in the tent, and all you see are, well, humans. He tweeted: "Excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake. To be precise, my mistake. Humans are underrated."

Elon Musk: People are way better at dealing with unexpected circumstances than robots. As you know.. yeah -

WORKERS: Yeah, yeah.

Elon Musk: Yeah.

He pushed his workers hard to meet the 5,000-a-week deadline. But he pushed himself even harder, out on the factory floor day and night troubleshooting and fixing work-line slowdowns.

Elon Musk: I think there was like literally one week where I actually worked 120 hours and just didn't leave the factory. I didn't even go outside. I wanted to make it clear to the team. They needed to see that however hard it was for them, I would make it worse for me.

And it paid off: Telsa announced in October it was profitable for the first time in years. The Model 3 is all electric, can go from 0 to 60 in 3 seconds and drive over 300 miles on a single battery charge. Musk wanted to show us the autopilot feature: the car drives itself.

Lesley Stahl: But right now, you're driving. Right now.

Elon Musk: Ah, yeah. (DINGS) But now I'm not.

Lesley Stahl: --now you're not driving at all.

Elon Musk: Not doing anything.

No hands. No feet.

Lesley Stahl: You feel safe?

Elon Musk: Yeah.

See the rest here:

Tesla CEO Elon Musk: The 2018 60 Minutes Interview - CBS News

Rocket Launcher

If Elon Musk has his way, the first humans will arrive on Mars in 2024, bringing with them everything they’ll need for the mission — or at least everything they think they’ll need.

If these Mars colonists find themselves in need of a new piece of equipment while on the Red Planet, they’ll be out of luck. That makes the prospect of a round-trip mission scary and the idea of long-term colonization downright terrifying.

We’ve written about the startup Relativity Space before, but now it’s offering a potential solution to that supply conundrum: It proposes outfitting Mars colonists with sophisticated 3D printers that could churn out almost anything they could ever need — even an entire rocket.

Alum Network

Designing a 3D-printable rocket is one of Relativity Space’s first goals. To meet it, the company is using a technology called laser sintering, which forms powdered metal into complex shapes.

According to Business Insider, it’s also vastly simplifying its rocket design — while a conventional rocket has about 100,000 moving parts, Relativity’s has only about 1,000.

Creating such a rocket is a major technical challenge, but Relativity has top-tier talent helping in the endeavor. Its co-founder and chief technology officer Jordan Noone previously worked at SpaceX and interned at Blue Origin, co-founder Tim Ellis was an engineer at Blue Origin, and advisor Tim Buzza was SpaceX’s fifth employee and an engineer for Virgin Orbit, Richard Branson’s rocket company.

Tech Deck

That said, designing a rocket astronauts could 3D print on Mars is still an enormous challenge. If Relativity’s project can make it off the ground, it’ll be an enormous boon to colonization efforts.

“I would love to launch our factory to Mars, and then figure out how to scale and sustain that society very quickly,” Ellis told Business Insider.

If successful, Relativity has the opportunity to make our off-world plans seem a little less scary.

READ MORE: Defectors From SpaceX and Blue Origin Are Developing a Remarkable Technology Called ‘Stargate’ to Help Colonize Other Planets [Business Insider]

More on settling Mars: Elon Musk’s Plans to Colonize Mars Overlook Some Major Hurdles

Read the original:

Future Mars Colonists Could Fly Rockets They 3D Printed Right on the Red Planet

Wanna Go For a Ride?

Tesla might be hitting speed bump after speed bump in 2018, but work on CEO Elon Musk’s tunneling venture is closing in on a major milestone.

On Saturday, the Boring Company released new photos of its two-mile-long test tunnel in Hawthorne, CA, and the elevator shaft it is constructing at the tunnel’s midway point.

Two days later, Musk took to Twitter to deliver an update on the tunnel’s progress, tweeting that the “first tunnel is almost done” and that it’ll open December 10 with an “[o]pening event that night and free rides for the public next day.”

Everyday I’m Tunneling

The test tunnel begins at a parking lot on the SpaceX grounds and runs west for two miles, following the course of 120th Street. The midpoint shaft, which the company calls O’Leary Station, will serve as a proof-of-concept for the elevators the company wants to use to lower people and vehicles into the tunnels.

As for the free rides Musk is offering to the public, details are sparse. Will people enter the tunnel at one end and ride a pod to the other? Enter at the midpoint shaft? Will the journey be round-trip or will riders need to battle the soul-crushing traffic on the surface to return to the starting point?

Elon Time

Then there’s the question of whether the December 10 opening is even realistic.

Musk’s Twitter followers are more than aware of the CEO’s penchant for overpromising and underdelivering, but when one asked if the December 10 date was “real time or Elon time,” Musk doubled-down on the deadline: “I think real.”

At least we won’t have to wait too long to find out if he’s right.

READ MORE: Elon Musk Tweets That the Boring Company’s First Tunnel Is Set to Open December 10 [Business Insider]

More on the Boring Company: Elon Musk Is Digging a Tunnel in a Residential Garage and Nobody Knows Exactly Why

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Elon Musk: First Boring Company Tunnel Will Open December 10

Securities and Exchange Commission officials were understandably taken aback on Thursday morning when Teslas board and its chairman, Elon Musk abruptly pulled out of a carefully crafted settlement.

After the S.E.C. responded by accusing Mr. Musk, but not the company that he had co-founded, of securities fraud, the board further defied regulators, issuing a provocative statement saying that the directors were fully confident in Elon, his integrity, and his leadership of the company.

It was a stunning reversal: The board had rejected a settlement that was extraordinarily generous it would have allowed Mr. Musk to remain as chief executive, and required him to step down as chairman for only two years. Now, the company was at risk of losing Mr. Musk as chairman and chief executive if regulators prevailed in court.

What it tells us is this board, as a strategic plan, must be using the Jim Jones-Jonestown suicide pact, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at the Yale School of Management, said Friday on CNBC. They are drinking the Kool-Aid of the founder. It is completely as self-destructive as Musk is.

But Mr. Musk had given the board little choice: In a phone call with directors before their lawyers went back to federal regulators with a final decision, Mr. Musk threatened to resign on the spot if the board insisted that he and the company enter into the settlement. Not only that, he demanded the board publicly extol his integrity.

Threatened with the abrupt departure of the man who is arguably Teslas single most important asset, the board caved to his demands, according to three people familiar with the boards decision.

The next day, Teslas lawyers were back at the S.E.C., all but groveling for a second chance this time with Mr. Musks grudging approval.

One factor in Mr. Musks change of heart: Teslas stock plunged Friday morning as investors absorbed news of the rejected settlement and the possibility that the S.E.C. would force Mr. Musk to step down. It would finish down almost 14 percent on Friday.

On Saturday, the company and Mr. Musk finally agreed to settle the matter, ending a crisis that began with Mr. Musks now-infamous Twitter post saying that he had funding secured for a buyout at $420 a share.

Mr. Musks 48 hours of obstinance came at a significant price to him and the company. They had passed on Thursdays generous offer, and the S.E.C. felt compelled to extract greater concessions. The ban on Mr. Musks serving as chairman went from two years to three, and his fine doubled to $20 million. Tesla will also pay a $20 million fine, and Mr. Musk agreed to personally buy the same amount in Tesla stock.

The S.E.C. is also requiring the company to add two independent directors and to elect an independent director as chairman.

Rejecting such a favorable settlement is proof that he needs monitoring, said John C. Coffee Jr., a professor at Columbia Law School. He didnt have a legal leg to stand on, and Im sure his lawyer told him that. But he got very touchy about not being able to proclaim his innocence.

From Mr. Musks view, that had been a crucial problem with a settlement from the beginning. Mr. Musk neither admitted nor denied guilt as part of the agreement, and he cannot publicly contest the S.E.C.s allegations. He cannot say, as he did on Thursday, that I have always taken action in the best interests of truth, transparency and investors and the facts will show I never compromised this in any way.

Teslas stock has rebounded this week, reflecting investors relief that Mr. Musk will remain as chief executive while the company puts mechanisms in place to curb his increasingly impulsive behavior. The board will closely watch Mr. Musks communications with investors, and establish a permanent committee responsible for, among other things, monitoring disclosures.

But it remains to be seen how effective the board can be, given Mr. Musks erratic temperament and his dominant role in the company.

People involved in the boards deliberations this week told me that some directors have proposed their fellow director, James Murdoch the chief executive of 21st Century Fox, most of which is being sold to the Walt Disney Company as chairman. But Mr. Murdoch hasnt volunteered for the post nor has he discussed it with any other director. And another person close to the selection process said the board hadnt yet engaged in any serious discussions of who should be chairman. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because the board discussions were private.

Under terms of the settlement, the board has 45 days before Mr. Musk must resign. Whether it is Mr. Murdoch or another similarly qualified candidate who takes over as chairman, managing Mr. Musk will be no easy challenge.

Independent directors frequently face difficulty asserting themselves in any company with an outsize figure like Mr. Musk, whether it be a founder, controlling shareholder or powerful chief executive, said Lucian Bebchuk, a professor at Harvard Law School and an expert in corporate governance. Such people can often replace any director who crosses them, he said.

Adding two independent directors can be expected to help, but its impact is likely to be limited, Professor Bebchuk said. As courts and governance researchers have long recognized, the presence of a dominant shareholder is likely to reduce the effectiveness of independent directors as overseers of the C.E.O.s decisions and behavior.

In the end, it took legal action by the S.E.C. to accomplish what had been increasingly obvious to most Tesla observers, including many of Teslas own directors: For all his brilliance, Mr. Musks reckless impulses must be kept in check.

Foremost among those should be threats to quit if he doesnt get his way.

Read the original post:

Elon Musks Ultimatum to Tesla: Fight the S.E.C., or I ...

Elon Musk. Joe Skipper / Reuters

A new profile of Tesla CEO Elon Musk gives an unusual example of how the stress of ramping up Model 3 production may have affected him. According to The Wall Street Journal, Musk started headbutting a car at Tesla's Fremont, California, factory this spring after he learned the assembly line would stop when people got too close to it.

The Journal reported that Musk was touring the factory and noticed that the assembly line had stopped. When he asked why, managers reportedly told him it was because of sensors triggered as a safety precaution when people interfered with the line. Their answer made Musk angry and he started to headbutt the front end of a car, according to The Journal.

"I don't see how this could hurt me," he reportedly said. "I want the cars to just keep moving."

A Tesla representative told Business Insider that Musk tapped the car with his head while wearing a safety hat to demonstrate that it didn't pose a safety risk. The spokesperson said that the equipment Musk asked about was redundant and modified after being tested by safety-equipment specialists.

For much of the year after the Model 3 was launched in July 2017, Tesla struggled to ramp up production. The Model 3 is the company's first mass-market car and one that Musk said the company was betting its existence on. At the end of June, Tesla achieved its goal of making 5,000 Model 3s in one week. Musk previously said the company would hit that number by the end of 2017 and that sustaining such a production rate was critical for Tesla to become profitable.

The Wall Street Journal's story is not the first to describe Musk's alleged displeasure with some safety measures at the Fremont factory. Reveal reported in April that Tesla didn't mark some hazard areas in yellow because Musk reportedly doesn't like the color and avoided other safety signs and markings for aesthetic reasons.

Tesla called Reveal's report "a completely false picture of Tesla and what it is actually like to work here" and claimed it was "an ideologically motivated attack by an extremist organization working directly with union supporters to create a calculated disinformation campaign against Tesla."

Have a Tesla news tip? Contact this reporter at mmatousek@businessinsider.com.

Originally posted here:

Elon Musk headbutted a car at a Tesla factory: report ...

Elon Musk was at home in Los Angeles, struggling to maintain his composure. This past year has been the most difficult and painful year of my career, he said. It was excruciating.

The year has only gotten more intense for Mr. Musk, the chairman and chief executive of the electric-car maker Tesla, since he abruptly declared on Twitter last week that he hoped to convert the publicly traded company into a private one. The episode kicked off a furor in the markets and within Tesla itself, and he acknowledged on Thursday that he was fraying.

In an hourlong interview with The New York Times, he choked up multiple times, noting that he nearly missed his brothers wedding this summer and spent his birthday holed up in Teslas offices as the company raced to meet elusive production targets on a crucial new model.

Asked if the exhaustion was taking a toll on his physical health, Mr. Musk answered: Its not been great, actually. Ive had friends come by who are really concerned.

[Read about the bizarre subplot involving Mr. Musk and the rapper Azealia Banks.]

The events set in motion by Mr. Musks tweet have ignited a federal investigation and have angered some board members, according to people familiar with the matter. Efforts are underway to find a No. 2 executive to help take some of the pressure off Mr. Musk, people briefed on the search said. And some board members have expressed concern not only about Mr. Musks workload but also about his use of Ambien, two people familiar with the board said.

For two decades, Mr. Musk has been one of Silicon Valleys most brash and ambitious entrepreneurs, helping to found several influential technology companies. He has often carried himself with bravado, dismissing critics and relishing the spotlight that has come with his success and fortune. But in the interview, he demonstrated an extraordinary level of self-reflection and vulnerability, acknowledging that his myriad executive responsibilities are taking a steep personal toll.

In the interview, Mr. Musk provided a detailed timeline of the events leading up to the Twitter postings on Aug. 7 in which he said he was considering taking the company private at $420 a share. He asserted that he had funding secured for such a deal a transaction likely to be worth well over $10 billion.

[Read the five key takeaways from our interview with Elon Musk.]

That morning, Mr. Musk woke up at home with his girlfriend, the musician known as Grimes, and had an early workout. Then he got in a Tesla Model S and drove himself to the airport. En route, Mr. Musk typed his fateful message.

Mr. Musk has said he saw the tweet as an attempt at transparency. He acknowledged Thursday that no one had seen or reviewed it before he posted it.

Teslas shares soared. Investors, analysts and journalists puzzled over the tweet published in the middle of the days official market trading, an unusual time to release major news including the price Mr. Musk cited. He said in the interview that he wanted to offer a roughly 20 percent premium over where the stock had been recently trading, which would have been about $419. He decided to round up to $420 a number that has become code for marijuana in counterculture lore.

It seemed like better karma at $420 than at $419, he said in the interview. But I was not on weed, to be clear. Weed is not helpful for productivity. Theres a reason for the word stoned. You just sit there like a stone on weed.

Mr. Musk reached the airport and flew on a private plane to Nevada, where he spent the day visiting a Tesla battery plant known as the Gigafactory, including time meeting with managers and working on an assembly line. That evening, he flew to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he held Tesla meetings late into the night.

What Mr. Musk meant by funding secured has become an important question. Those two words helped propel Teslas shares higher.

But that funding, it turned out, was far from secure.

Mr. Musk has said he was referring to a potential investment by Saudi Arabias government investment fund. Mr. Musk had extensive talks with representatives of the $250 billion fund about possibly financing a transaction to take Tesla private maybe even in a manner that would have resulted in the Saudis owning most of the company. One of those sessions took place on July 31 at the Tesla factory in the Bay Area, according to a person familiar with the meeting. But the Saudi fund had not committed to provide any cash, two people briefed on the discussions said.

Another possibility under consideration is that SpaceX, Mr. Musks rocket company, would help bankroll the Tesla privatization and would take an ownership stake in the carmaker, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Musks tweet kicked off a chain reaction.

An hour and 20 minutes after the tweet, with Teslas shares up 7 percent, the Nasdaq stock exchange halted trading, and Tesla published a letter to employees from Mr. Musk explaining the rationale for possibly taking the company private. When the shares resumed trading, they continued their climb, ending the day with an 11 percent gain.

The next day, investigators in the San Francisco office of the Securities and Exchange Commission asked Tesla for explanations. Ordinarily, such material information about a public companys plans is laid out in detail after extensive internal preparation and issued through official channels. Board members, blindsided by the chief executives market-moving statement, were angry that they had not been briefed, two people familiar with the matter said. They scrambled to cobble together a public statement trying to defuse a mounting uproar over the seemingly haphazard communication.

Mr. Musk said in the interview that board members had not complained to him about his tweet. I dont recall getting any communications from the board at all, he said. I definitely did not get calls from irate directors.

But shortly after the Times published its interview with Mr. Musk, he added through a Tesla spokeswoman that Antonio Gracias, Teslas lead independent director, had indeed contacted him to discuss the Aug. 7 Twitter post, and that he had agreed not to tweet again about the possible privatization deal unless he had discussed it with the board.

In the interview, Mr. Musk added that he did not regret his Twitter post Why would I? and said he had no plans to stop using the social media platform. Some board members, however, have recently told Mr. Musk that he should lay off Twitter and focus on making cars and launching rockets, according to people familiar with the matter.

[Kara Swisher, a Times opinion columnist, writes that Mr. Musk is deeply human, with all the positive and negative characteristics that suggests.]

The S.E.C. investigation appears to be intensifying rapidly. Just days after the agencys request for information, Teslas board and Mr. Musk received S.E.C. subpoenas, according to a person familiar with the matter. Board members and Mr. Musk are preparing to meet with S.E.C. officials as soon as next week, the person said.

In the interview on Thursday, Mr. Musk alternated between laughter and tears.

He said he had been working up to 120 hours a week recently echoing the reason he cited in a recent public apology to an analyst whom he had berated. In the interview, Mr. Musk said he had not taken more than a week off since 2001, when he was bedridden with malaria.

There were times when I didnt leave the factory for three or four days days when I didnt go outside, he said. This has really come at the expense of seeing my kids. And seeing friends.

Mr. Musk stopped talking, seemingly overcome by emotion.

He turned 47 on June 28, and he said he spent the full 24 hours of his birthday at work. All night no friends, nothing, he said, struggling to get the words out.

Two days later, he was scheduled to be the best man at the wedding of his brother, Kimbal, in Catalonia. Mr. Musk said he flew directly there from the factory, arriving just two hours before the ceremony. Immediately afterward, he got back on the plane and returned straight to Tesla headquarters, where work on the mass-market Model 3 has been all consuming.

Mr. Musk paused again.

I thought the worst of it was over I thought it was, he said. The worst is over from a Tesla operational standpoint. He continued: But from a personal pain standpoint, the worst is yet to come.

He blamed short-sellers investors who bet that Teslas shares will lose value for much of his stress. He said he was bracing for at least a few months of extreme torture from the short-sellers, who are desperately pushing a narrative that will possibly result in Teslas destruction.

Referring to the short-sellers, he added: Theyre not dumb guys, but theyre not supersmart. Theyre O.K. Theyre smartish.

[Short-sellers made $1 billion as Tesla stock dropped 9 percent on Friday.]

Mr. Musks tweets on Aug. 7 were the most recent of several flare-ups that had drawn scrutiny. He wrangled with short-sellers and belittled analysts for asking boring, bonehead questions. And after sending a team of engineers from one of his companies to help rescue members of a stranded soccer team, he lashed out at a cave diver who was dismissive of the gesture, deriding him on Twitter as a pedo guy, or pedophile.

To help sleep when he is not working, Mr. Musk said he sometimes takes Ambien. It is often a choice of no sleep or Ambien, he said.

But this has worried some board members, who have noted that sometimes the drug does not put Mr. Musk to sleep but instead contributes to late-night Twitter sessions, according to a person familiar with the boards thinking. Some board members are also aware that Mr. Musk has on occasion used recreational drugs, according to people familiar with the matter.

Tesla executives have been trying for years to recruit a chief operating officer or other No. 2 executive to assume some of Mr. Musks day-to-day responsibilities, according to people familiar with the matter. A couple of years ago, Mr. Musk said, the company approached Sheryl Sandberg, who is Facebooks second-highest executive, about the job.

Mr. Musk said that to the best of my knowledge, there is no active search right now. But people familiar with the matter said a search is underway, and one person said it had intensified in the wake of Mr. Musks tweets.

[The Tesla board now must ask a sensitive but vital question, our columnist writes. What was Mr. Musks state of mind when he tweeted?]

In response to questions for this article, Tesla provided a statement that it attributed to its board, excluding Elon Musk. There have been many false and irresponsible rumors in the press about the discussions of the Tesla board, the statement said. We would like to make clear that Elons commitment and dedication to Tesla is obvious. Over the past 15 years, Elons leadership of the Tesla team has caused Tesla to grow from a small start-up to having hundreds of thousands of cars on the road that customers love, employing tens of thousands of people around the world, and creating significant shareholder value in the process.

Mr. Musk said he had no plans to relinquish his dual roles as chairman and chief executive.

But, he added, if you have anyone who can do a better job, please let me know. They can have the job. Is there someone who can do the job better? They can have the reins right now.

Andrew Ross Sorkin contributed reporting.

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Elon Musk Details Excruciating Personal Toll of Tesla ...

Elon Musk, (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, South Africa), South African-born American entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment firm PayPal and formed SpaceX, maker of launch vehicles and spacecraft. He was also one of the first significant investors in, as well as chairman and chief executive officer of, the electric car manufacturer Tesla.

Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mother. He displayed an early talent for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created a video game and sold it to a computer magazine. In 1988, after obtaining a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he was unwilling to support apartheid through compulsory military service and because he sought the greater economic opportunities available in the United States.

Musk attended Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, and in 1992 he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, where he received bachelors degrees in physics and economics in 1995. He enrolled in graduate school in physics at Stanford University in California, but he left after only two days because he felt that the Internet had much more potential to change society than work in physics. That year he founded Zip2, a company that provided maps and business directories to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online financial services company, X.com, which later became PayPal, which specialized in transferring money online. The online auction eBay bought PayPal in 2002 for $1.5 billion.

Musk was long convinced that for life to survive, humanity has to become a multiplanet species. However, he was dissatisfied with the great expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) to make more affordable rockets. Its first two rockets were the Falcon 1 (first launched in 2006) and the larger Falcon 9 (first launched in 2010), which were designed to cost much less than competing rockets. A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first launched in 2018), was designed to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly twice as much as its largest competitor, the Boeing Companys Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost. SpaceX also developed the Dragon spacecraft, which carries supplies to the International Space Station and is designed to carry as many as seven astronauts. Musk sought to reduce the expense of spaceflight by developing a fully reusable rocket that could lift off and return to the pad it launched from. Beginning in 2012, SpaceXs Grasshopper rocket made several short flights to test such technology. In addition to being CEO of SpaceX, Musk was also chief designer in building the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper.

Musk had long been interested in the possibilities of electric cars, and in 2004 he became one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later renamed Tesla), an electric car company founded by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. In 2006 Tesla introduced its first car, the Roadster, which could travel 245 miles (394 km) on a single charge. Unlike most previous electric vehicles, which Musk thought were stodgy and uninteresting, it was a sports car that could go from 0 to 60 miles (97 km) per hour in less than four seconds. In 2012 Tesla introduced the Model S sedan, which was acclaimed by automotive critics for its performance and design. The company won further praise for its Model X luxury SUV, which went on the market in 2015.

Dissatisfied with the projected cost ($68 billion) of a high-speed rail system in California, Musk in 2013 proposed an alternate faster system, the Hyperloop, a pneumatic tube in which a pod carrying 28 passengers would travel the 350 miles (560 km) between Los Angeles and San Francisco in 35 minutes at a top speed of 760 miles (1,220 km) per hour, nearly the speed of sound. Musk claimed that the Hyperloop would cost only $6 billion and that, with the pods departing every two minutes on average, the system could accommodate the six million people who travel that route every year. However, he stated that, between running SpaceX and Tesla, he could not devote time to the Hyperloops development.

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Elon Musk | Biography & Facts | Britannica.com