--- title: "Elon Musk Says Americans Are Super Lazy Compared to People in China" description: "Elon Musk said he believes the Chinese workforce is harder working than Americans. That tracks with a long history of grueling work at his companies." date: "2022-05-11" modified: "2022-05-11" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-chinese-workers" categories: - "Elon Musk" - "Future Society" - "The Industrialists" tags: - "elon musk" - "tesla" - "the digest" - "workplace conditions" --- # Elon Musk Says Americans Are Super Lazy Compared to People in China ![Elon Musk said he believes the Chinese workforce is harder working than Americans. That tracks with a long history of grueling work at his companies.]() *NEW YORK, NEW YORK - MAY 02: Elon Musk attends The 2022 Met Gala Celebrating "In America: An Anthology of Fashion" at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 02, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue) \Image: Getty Images\* ## Burn Baby Burn It appears that Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk may be enamored of a totalitarian communist state. And no, we're not talking about California. In a wide-ranging appearance at the [*Financial Times*' Future of the Car summit yesterday](), Musk told the crowd that he believes the Chinese workforce is harder working than Americans — a complex admission, because while China hosts some of Tesla's most significant electric vehicle making competition, it's also a huge market for both building and selling Teslas. “I think there will be some very strong companies coming out of China," he said during his remarks at the autos conference. "There \[are\] just a lot of supertalented hardworking people in China who strongly believe in manufacturing." "They won’t just be burning the midnight oil," Musk added, "they will be burning the 3am oil, they won’t even leave the factory type of thing, whereas in America people are trying to avoid going to work at all.” ## Workplace Culture Wars **O**bsession with an unrealistic work ethic isn't a new thing for Musk. In the past, employees have described Tesla as having a "toxic" workplace culture where they're expected to do far more tasks than the average American worker. "The worst part is the toxicity that Elon creates — unrealistic stretch targets without a realistic plan in order to achieve them," a former Tesla manager who claimed to work directly with Musk [told *Business Insider* in 2020](). "It's a culture in which, if you don't have a solution to a problem and you don't have that problem resolved within a few days or a week or two, you're gone." Musk has also been known to prowl Tesla facilities, [firing employees for minor transgressions](). At SpaceX, interestingly, that ironfisted rule often translates into a strong sense of shared mission — but at Tesla, it seems to make a lot of workers miserable. Another former Tesla employee who worked as a salesperson told *Business Insider* that "the worst part \[about working at Tesla\] was having a constant sense that your company does not care about you at all, that you simply do not matter." Though he may be progressive on some fronts, when it comes to work ethic Musk appears to be firmly in the Steve Jobs' camp of terrorizing employees into excellence. **More from the *FT* summit:** *[Welp, Elon Musk Says He's Gonna Unban Trump on Twitter]()* **More on Tesla's workplace climate:** [*Tesla May Have Broken The Law In Underreporting Worker Injuries*]() ## 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]()