Arianna Huffingtons open letter to Elon Musk

Arianna Huffingtons open letter to Elon MuskArianna Huffingtons open letter to Elon MuskDear Elon,As you know, Im a huge admirer of yours - both of you personally and of all the ways in which you are changing our world. In particular, Ive always loved how, whenever I see you, the first thing you do is whip out your phone to proudly show me videos of your adorable children and their latest exploits. Clearly you have much going on in your life, but it says a lot about you that this is what you lead with.Youre a person of incredible big-picture vision. Your genius and your passion for innovating and changing the world have always been informed by your passion not just for your children and friends but for what youve called the scope and scale of human consciousness and our longing for greater enlightenment. And youre a big believer in the ancient Greek philosophy of first principles, which encourages breaking a problem down to its fundamental parts.Please come back to that. As you told the New York Times, youve exhausted yourself working 120-hour weeks at the expense of seeing your children and your friends. Youve had days-long stretches where you shut yourself inside the Tesla factory and dont even go outside. You dont take vacations. Theres no way you can connect with your amazing vision and creativity when you dont give yourself time to reconnect not just with those you love but also with yourself and your wisdom.This is not about working hard - of course youre always going to work hard. Its about working in a way that allows you to make your best decisions.Youre a science and data-driven person. Youre obsessed with physics, engineering, with figuring out how things work. So apply that same passion for science not just to your products but to yourself. People are not machines. For machines - whether of the First or Fourth Industrial Revolution variety - downtime is a bug for humans, downtime is a feature. The science is clear. And what it tells us is that t heres simply no way you can make good decisions and achieve your world-changing ambitions while running on empty.To cite just one study, after 17-19 hours without sleep, we begin to experience levels of cognitive impairment equivalent to a blood alcohol level of .05 percent, just under the threshold for being legally drunk. No business leader would hire people who came to work drunk, so dont model that behavior for your employees.Tesla is revolutionary because its all about how we can most efficiently use energy, which holds the potential to change the world. Thats why the mass-market Model 3 is so important. Youve come up against incredible challenges, and youve met them by being ever more rigorous and determined about applying the latest science. But at the same time, youre demonstrating a wildly outdated, anti-scientific and horribly inefficient way of using human energy. Its like trying to launch us into our clean energy future (or into space) with a coal-fired steam engine. It just wont work.So please take a page from another visionary American leader, FDR. In 1940, America welches at a precarious moment in history. Britain was struggling in the war, with both supplies and money running low. They needed help, but Roosevelt knew Congress would never simply loan Britain the money. So instead of putting in 120-hour weeks, FDR instead took a ten-day break on a naval ship. The trip drew criticism, but FDR knew what he was doing - he needed time and space to refuel. The result was the $50 billion Lend-Lease program, which has been described as his political masterpiece that provided a way for him to sell Congress on helping the Brits continue to resist the Nazis.So Elon, the future of Tesla depends on you coming up with your masterpiece. It doesnt depend on how many hours youre awake. Tesla - and the world (not to mention you and your beautiful children) - would be better off if you regularly built in time to refuel, recharge and reconnect with your exceptio nal reserves of creativity and your power to innovate. Working 120-hour weeks doesnt leverage your unique qualities, it wastes them. You cant simply power through - thats just not how our bodies and our brains work. Nobody knows better than you that we cant get to Mars by ignoring the laws of physics. Nor can we get where we want to go by ignoring scientific laws in our daily lives.In your bewerbungsinterview with the Times you mentioned that you spent your recent 47th birthday, all 24 hours of it, at work (all night - no friends, nothing). I applaud your honesty and vulnerability in realizing that you need a new way of working. Heres to a happier, healthier - and even more efficient and visionary - 48th year. You need it, Tesla needs it, and the world needs it. And when your next birthday rolls around, Im happy to host the celebration - all work phones will be checked at the doorThis post first appeared on Thrive.