--- title: "You Can See When Elon Musk Actually Sleeps by Analyzing His Tweets, and It’s Terrifying" description: "Perhaps more than anyone else, Elon Musk has a propensity for posting through it — and it seems that includes his apparent insomnia." date: "2025-03-02" modified: "2025-03-02" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/elon-musk-tweets-sleep" categories: - "Elon Musk" - "Future Society" - "Health & Medicine" - "Sleep" - "The Industrialists" tags: - "doge" - "elon musk" - "sleep" - "twitter" --- # You Can See When Elon Musk Actually Sleeps by Analyzing His Tweets, and It’s Terrifying ![Perhaps more than anyone else, Elon Musk has a propensity for posting through it — and it seems that includes his apparent insomnia.]() *\Image: Chip Somodevilla via Getty / Futurism\* Perhaps more than anyone else, Elon Musk has a propensity for [posting through it]() — and it seems that includes his apparent insomnia. As [flagged by]() politics and sports analyst Nate Silver, a graph [compiled by *The Economist*]() that tracked Musk's tweets from 2014 until November 2024 illustrated in stark detail how frequently the billionaire posts — and, since it's not (yet) possible to tweet while sleeping, how incredibly little sleep he gets. With tiny red dots, the graph not only charted the Tesla and SpaceX owner's prolific posting output by date, but also by time of day. As his tweeting has become more and more frequent in recent years, so too has his short window of "off" hours when he's presumably slumbering. Unsurprisingly, those gaps in tweet times also grew shorter and more erratic after he purchased Twitter in the fall of 2022, as the graph makes clear. That was also, [as *The Economist* noted](), when he began to delve seriously into politics, posting regularly — and at time incoherently — about free speech, immigration, and what he calls the "woke mind virus." ![]() While the average person tends to sleep approximately when the Sun is down, Musk's hours don't follow conventional patterns. The [alleged insomniac]() appears, per the shrinking blank spaces in that *Economist* tweet chart, to mostly sleep between 3 and 10 am — on that days that he actually stops tweeting and gets to sleep at all. Those chart gaps seem to jibe with previous remarks the billionaire has made about his sleep habits in years prior, when he was still something of a curiosity in the public imagination and not the trigger-happy government hatchet man he's become today. Speaking to the "[Full Send]()" podcast back in 2022, for instance, Musk said he's generally asleep by 3 am and usually gets up around 9 or 9:30 in the morning. The next year, he [admitted to *CNBC*]() that getting fewer than six hours took a toll on his mental state. "I’ve tried \[to sleep\] less, but... even though I’m awake more hours, I get less done," the billionaire said in May 2023. "And the brain pain level is bad if I get less than six hours." In the years since that admission, it appears that Musk has retreated further and further into that lack of sleep that he admits is bad for him, which according to accounts [given to biographer Walter Isaacson]() were caused by stress and would often lead to intense nausea and vomiting. Sleep depriviation is no joke. It's been [employed as torture]() against prisoners and can lead to severe health problems [including death](); getting insufficient rest, like Musk, is [known to cause]() a grim combination of brain fog, mood swings, unpredictable behavior, paranoia and even psychotic symptoms — and that's without getting into [Musk's drug allegations](). What's worse, Musk seems to be forcing that unhealthy "[all work and no rest]()" mentality onto his underling at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). He even reportedly [moved sofa beds]() for his DOGE boys into the Office of Personnel Management — the [same thing he did]() when he took over Twitter back in 2022. "DOGE is working 120 hours a week," the [unelected official posted]() at the beginning of February. "Our bureaucratic opponents optimistically work 40 hours a week. That is why they are losing so fast." Unfortunately, we don't have an updated dot matrix graph like the one from *The Economist* for Musk's tweets since Trump took office again — but it's clear that he entered this chaotic post-election period in a state of rage-fueled sleep deprivation, and now we're all suffering the consequences. **More on Musk's mindset:** [*Elon Musk's Guiding Principle Seems to Be Trying to Inflict as Much Cruelty as Possible*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()