3 A.M. IN SILICON VALLEY — A DAY WITHOUT PAUSE IN THE LIFE OF ELON MUSK

Three in the morning.

The lights in the room are still on. The phone screen continues to glow with notifications arriving without order: urgent messages from SpaceX engineers, critical emails from Tesla, alerts from X — the social network where he is both owner and its most relentless user.

Elon Musk places the phone down and closes his eyes. Not because he is sleepy, but because he knows that if he keeps scrolling, he will get up and work for a few more hours.

Three a.m. — the moment the richest man on Earth finally decides to end his workday.

He sleeps. Six hours. No more.

9 A.M. — WHEN THE WORLD IS ALREADY MOVING, HE WAKES UP

Elon Musk wakes up at 9 a.m. No elaborate alarm, no slow ritual. The first thing he does is not to open the curtains or get out of bed — it is to pick up his phone.

The screen lights up. News, alerts, posts, potential crises. A habit he has openly admitted is “bad,” yet one he has never been able to break.

“There are days when I wake up and open Twitter just to check if it’s still running,” Musk once joked. But to those who know him, it wasn’t really a joke. For Musk, every morning is a system check — a test to see whether the world, and his companies, are still holding together.

Breakfast comes quickly. Simple, but not careless. At one point, Musk joked that he ate a donut every morning. By late 2025, however, he revealed his favorite breakfast: steak, eggs, and coffee. Sweets still make an appearance, coffee is mandatory. Enough fuel to power a day with no clear ending.

THE SHOWER — THE SIMPLEST, YET MOST IMPORTANT HABIT

Years ago, during a Reddit AMA, when asked which daily habit had the biggest impact on his life, Elon Musk replied with just one word:

“Showering.”

Not meditation. Not exercise. Not reading.

Just a shower.

It is one of the rare moments in the day when no one calls, no one interrupts, and no decisions are required. Water runs, thoughts drift. For a mind constantly operating at maximum speed, it is a necessary pause.

ON THE ROAD — NEVER KNOWING WHICH TESLA IT WILL BE

Every workday, Elon Musk randomly chooses which Tesla will take him to the office. A Model S, a Model X, or the Cybertruck — the controversial vehicle that never escapes paparazzi lenses.

Once, a user on X posted a meme about choosing between a Cybertruck without autopilot and a Model S with full self-driving. Musk replied simply:

“That’s the choice I face every day.”

No personal driver. No motorcade. The man with nearly $500 billion in net worth drives himself through ordinary traffic to places where thousands of people await his decisions.

120 HOURS A WEEK — A NUMBER NOT MEANT FOR NORMAL HUMANS

Elon Musk has said it plainly: “You can’t change the world working 40 hours a week.”

At certain points in his life, his schedule stretched to 120 hours a week — meaning he worked nearly every waking moment.

Mornings at Tesla. Afternoons at SpaceX. Evenings with AI teams. Nights at X headquarters. Some days began in court, continued at Tesla’s Nevada factory, and ended deep into the night with AI engineers.

“Wherever the crisis is, that’s where I go,” Musk once said. His work has no fixed schedule. It moves with problems.

NO LUNCH BREAK

Elon Musk almost never eats lunch.

If he does, it’s something small, consumed quickly between meetings. Not because of dieting — but because there is simply no time.

Dinner, however, is different. Dinner is one of the few rewards of the day. Musk says he can eat anywhere and enjoys many cuisines, but at heart, he favors classic American food.

Hamburgers. Pizza.

“If I could eat only one food for the rest of my life, it would be a hamburger,” Musk once said. “It’s a brilliant invention.”

It’s no surprise that the Tesla Diner in Hollywood heavily features burgers on its menu.

EXERCISE — ONLY WHEN NECESSARY

There were periods when Musk openly admitted he avoided exercise whenever possible. At other times, he said he “barely exercised at all, except lifting and throwing the kids in the air.”

Then, when rumors of a potential fight with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg surfaced, Musk claimed he was lifting weights almost every day. His habits shift. His goals change. His body adapts.

NIGHT — WHEN WORK NEVER REALLY ENDS

For most people, the workday ends at 6 p.m. For Elon Musk, that’s merely a transition.

Some nights he works past midnight at X headquarters. Some nights he sleeps on the factory floor at Tesla. After acquiring Twitter, he nearly moved into the San Francisco headquarters, napping on a couch in the library.

According to Walter Isaacson’s biography, Musk has spent countless nights lying awake, thinking through engineering failures, financial risks, and personnel crises. On one occasion, his former partner Grimes recalled him staying awake all night playing Elden Ring — not purely for entertainment, but because his mind could not shut down.

3 A.M. — THE LOOP BEGINS AGAIN

“I go to sleep, wake up, work, and repeat — seven days a week,” Musk told The Wall Street Journal.

Three a.m. Lights off. Six hours later, the cycle begins again.

No Sundays off. No true weekends. Tesla, SpaceX, X — each demands all of him.

It is not a life meant for everyone. But for Elon Musk, it is the price of standing where he stands — at the edge between exhaustion and greatness, between personal obsession and the ambition to reshape the world.

And while the city sleeps, so does he — for six brief hours, before the next loop begins.