Elon Musk slams 40-hour work week, internet fires back: ‘This clown plays video games half the day’ | Trending

There are currently two camps on social media – one of business leaders who support longer working hours and the other of those who are against it. Elon Musk is clearly a part of the former. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, close ally of Trump, was picked to lead the newly-created Department of Government Efficiency. (Reuters/File) Musk recently joined the likes of Infosys founder Narayana Murthy and Larsen & Toubro chairman SN Subrahmanyan in calling on professionals to work longer hours. In a post shared on his social media platform X, the CEO of Tesla said that DOGE, or the Department of Government Efficiency, which he leads, has people who work 120 hours a week. To put that into perspective, Musk is claiming that people at the US government department work 17 hours every day, without any weekends to relax. Or they work 24 hours a day for five days straight, taking no time to sleep. “DOGE is working 120 hour a week. Our bureaucratic opponents optimically work 40 hours a week. That is why they are losing so fast,” Musk wrote, responding to a post targeting Democrats. Take a look at his post below: Blasted on XThe remark was met with massive backlash on X (formerly Twitter) as Musk’s followers pointed out the physical and psychological fallout of working such long hours. “While working for fed gov, I learned that it’s illegal to work unauthorized overtime. Doing so obligates the government to pay, because slavery is illegal. So how are federal staff in DOGE legally putting in these hours? Multiple shifts?” asked one X user. “The worst aspect of the tech industry is overworking people, while paying them low wages, then firing them in droves. The only people who benefit are the bosses,” another person commented. The post also led to inevitable comparisons with Infosys and L&T. Several users said that people working more than 40 to 45 hours a week are not able to spend time with their families. “How does a 120 hour week sit with their families? No time for the kids, partners and love making… I thought you lot were ardent supporters of the family unit?” a user wondered. “I don’t think that’s sustainable, even for a digital currency 4-day workweeks have done wonders for hell’s productivity and morale,” another added. Some took jibes at Musk’s own work ethic. “This clown plays video games half the day while the other half he spends tweeting. Surely no one on earth believes that this man is working 120 hours a week. At best he’s probably putting in 2 full hours of actual work a day,” an X user wrote.