If you work for Elon Musk, what keeps you motivated?

It would be great to hear from actual folks working for one of his companies rather than folks that presume that they can speak on behalf of those people, and, even worse, go so far as to liken them to "people in abusive relationships".

It could be that if you work there, you show that you can withstand the pressure as some sort of modern slave.

-> It shows that you can do hard work and that you can be productive.

-> It actually increases your odds to get hired at one of these modern and well-paid retirement houses like Google or Meta.

(I believe it seriously, it's not sarcasm from my perspective)

Tangentially, as a contractor.

I've always been and remain a big fan of Musk's business acumen and initiatives. Being involved in some small way to help realize the future is tremendously rewarding.

None of the political stuff or "media controversies" bother me. I lean Right myself, am tired of progressive nonsense circa ~2012, and have seen the MSM been caught in lie after lie after lie over the past 20 years (and the lies almost always lean one way). Going after bureaucracy and government efficiency is incredibly important, even if done in a somewhat haphazard manner. These institutions become cancerous and waste tremendous taxpayer resources, they need some chemotherapy.

Well OP, you asked, I answered, I wonder if HN is mature enough to discuss such a topic without excessively downvoting the political minority here.

Maybe you don't care as much about politics (for or against) and instead care about working on something at the bleeding edge.

If you want to work for a company on the bleeding edge then it's hards to find one further than a Musk company.

Throwaway acct for obvious reasons

I worked at The Boring Company at a relatively high ranking role. I stayed as long as I did because I loved the challenge - deadlines are crazy, and its a high stress high reward environment. Until the work started impacting my personal life, I didn't really have a problem with it. Steve Davis is a micromanager to the extreme, which is one of the worst parts of the job. If you perform well in the environment, you're rewarded for it by getting less oversight by Steve. It's an incentive to stick with the company. In addition, my ISO package was very handsome.

I left due to the previously mentioned personal life impacts, and the increasing political bias of the company. I'm relatively left leaning, and prior to the election, Elon visited and stated that it was crucial that Trump won to secure the future of the company for deregulation. Steve Davis also kept leaning onto this in our all hands. All in all, it just became too much for me.

Money

SpaceX is the leading rocket agency in the world. That that might be someone you don't like at the helm is secondary. If you're a world renowned rocket scientist, where else would you want to work? Boeing? Move to China? A theoretical SpaceX that didn't have Elon Musk at the helm? Blue Origin? Not to denigrate the people that work at either of those, but building the Falcon 9 is something I'd be proud to tell my kids, if I was a rocket scientist.

Relevant article: Tesla Fires a Manager Who Criticized Elon Musk on Social Media https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/27/business/elon-musk-tesla-...

A lot of engineering types lack morals, which is why you see so many horrible things being made in this world.

Remember, our space program was lead by a former Nazi who was happy to use slave labor.

I have to assume that anyone still working for a Musk company is fine with Musk's behaviors.