Again in February, Elon Musk stated he and his workforce on the Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE) are working 120 hours every week.
“Our bureaucratic opponents optimistically work 40 hours a week,” he added. “That is why they are losing so fast.”
To be clear, there are 168 hours in every week, which suggests if Musk and his DOGE workers are working for 120 of these hours, there are solely 48 hours remaining for them to make use of for the whole lot else: making ready and consuming meals, private hygiene, to not point out free time for hobbies or spending time with their households.
Only for enjoyable, let’s assume you might want to spend 120 of your 168 hours per week working, so you employ the remaining 48 hours for sleep and sleep solely: You continue to wouldn’t come near a full eight hours per night time, which is what many docs suggest. With 48 hours of potential sleep unfold throughout seven days, even in probably the most very best situations, probably the most you would get is 6.8 hours per night time. Assuming DOGE employees usually are not working from dwelling (Musk known as distant work “morally wrong” in 2023), it is secure to say DOGE workers working 120-hour weeks would in all probability not even scratch 6.8 hours of sleep since they’d want time to commute, except they’re squeezing in nap breaks throughout the day.
To be completely clear, sleep is significant to perform. The Mayo Clinic says frequently getting lower than seven hours of sleep an evening for adults “has been linked with poor health, including weight gain, having a body mass index of 30 or higher, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, and depression.” The CDC additionally says getting lower than seven hours a sleep frequently “can lead to serious health problems.”
Musk, although, is famously a workaholic. In a November 2022 interview with Baron Capital CEO Ron Baron, the world’s richest man stated he was “dwelling within the manufacturing facility in Fremont, and the one in Nevada, for 3 years straight. That was my main residence.”
“I slept on the couch at one point, in a tent on the roof, and for a while there, I was just sleeping under my desk, which is out in the open in the factory,” he stated. “It was damn uncomfortable sleeping on that floor and always, when I woke up, I’d smell like metal dust.”
Musk’s push to make workers more practical by merely having them log extra hours might not be efficient, both. A 2014 examine from Stanford College discovered productiveness per hour has a pointy drop-off when an individual works greater than 50 hours every week, and “output at 70 hours differs little from output at 56 hours,” that means your efficacy has diminishing returns above a sure threshold. Maybe relatedly, Musk lately stated he is juggling his tasks with DOGE, Tesla, and his different personal firms like SpaceX and xAI “with great difficulty.”
That aforementioned 55-hour mark appears to have equal ramifications for each productiveness and well-being: In accordance with 2021 knowledge from the World Well being Group, 745,000 individuals died in 2016 from both stroke or coronary heart illness “as a result of having worked at least 55 hours a week.” That very same examine stated working greater than 55 hours every week offers you a 35% greater threat of stroke and 17% greater threat of dying from coronary heart illness in comparison with a standard 35- to 40-hour week.
“Working 55 hours or more per week is a serious health hazard,” Dr. Maria Neira, who has served because the WHO’s Director of the Division of Public Well being and Atmosphere since 2005, stated in a press release.
Musk and his DOGE workforce didn’t reply to Fortune‘s request for remark.
This story was initially featured on Fortune.com
