Elon Musk has a word of caution for anyone who envies his lifestyle. "I don't think you'd necessarily want to be me," he told podcaster Joe Rogan in an interview that lasted more than two hours. "I don't think people would like it that much." One big reason is that his brain is "a never-ending explosion" of ideas that he finds hard to turn off, per CNN. Musk touched on all manner of things in the interview, but he's drawing the most attention for taking a puff of a marijuana-tobacco joint handed to him by Rogan. Related coverage, including the departure of two high-ranking Tesla execs:
- The pot: "I mean it's legal, right?" asked Musk in accepting the joint. (The interview was done in California, where recreational pot is, in fact, legal. See the pot-smoking here.) Musk, though, says he almost never indulges in the stuff. "I don't find that it's very good for productivity," he said. "It is sort of like a cup of coffee in reverse." Musk also had some whiskey during the interview.
- Questionable? A story at the Wall Street Journal sees the public puff as "jarring" given the context: It "involved the chief executive of a large publicly traded corporation, but also one who is under immense scrutiny for his occasional public outbursts."
- 2 big departures: The interview is out along with news that Tesla's chief accountant quit just a month into the job, reports Business Insider. However, Dave Morton said he's leaving only because the pace and the public scrutiny are more intense than he expected. "I believe strongly in Tesla, its mission, and its future prospects, and I have no disagreements with Tesla's leadership or its financial reporting." Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that human resources chief Gaby Toledano will not return from a leave of absence that began last month.
- Market reacts: Tesla's stock was down as much as 10% Friday morning in the wake of the interview and the high-level departures, especially that of Morton, reports MarketWatch. Those two are just the latest in a series of executive departures, including a senior VP of engineering who left for Apple.
- A criticism: The "joke's getting old," and Musk is scaring away investors with his antics, writes Liam Denning at Bloomberg. "Eccentricities on the part of the CEO can be tolerated—even laughed about—when everything is going well. But things are not going well at Tesla." The sinking stock price is just one indication of that.
- Planes next? Back to the interview, the Verge is interested in Musk's ideas for an electric plane, a concept he said he's thought a lot about. "Once you’ve overcome gravitational potential energy and you’re at a high altitude, the energy you use in cruise is very low, and then you can recapture a large part of your gravitational potential energy on the way down," he explains. "So you really don’t need any kind of reserve fuel.” The website also calls attention to Musk's description of our reliance on fossil fuels as "insane" and the "dumbest experiment in human history."
- Sage advice: Musk also dispensed some advice that might surprise observers of his fast-paced, business-centric life. "It may sound corny, but love is the answer," he said, per AFP. "Spend more time with your friends and less time on social media."
(Separately, Musk is
doubling down on his accusations against a diver involved in the Thailand cave rescue.)
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