When does Musk sleep? Following his tweets, the answer is easy

If there’s one thing Elon Musk does best—besides running billion-dollar companies—it’s posting through everything. And as it turns out, that includes his apparent insomnia.

Musk’s Late-Night Twitter Frenzy

A newly surfaced graph from The Economist, highlighted by analyst Nate Silver, tracks Musk’s tweets from 2014 to November 2024—and paints a telling picture of his erratic sleep schedule. The data shows that as Musk’s tweeting increased, his off hours shrank, suggesting he’s operating on dangerously little sleep.

His sleep pattern took a dramatic hit after he purchased Twitter in 2022, when his timeline became dominated by politics—ranging from free speech rants to immigration tirades and his ongoing battle against what he calls the “woke mind virus.”

How Much Sleep Does Musk Really Get?

While most people follow a normal sleep cycle, Musk’s habits defy convention. Based on The Economist’s analysis, he appears to mostly sleep between 3 AM and 10 AM—on the rare occasions he actually sleeps at all.

This aligns with Musk’s past admissions about his sleep schedule. In a 2022 podcast interview, he claimed he goes to bed around 3 AM and wakes up at 9 or 9:30 AM. By 2023, he told CNBC that getting less than six hours of sleep negatively affected his mental and physical health.

“I’ve tried [to sleep] less, but… even though I’m awake more hours, I get less done,” Musk admitted in May 2023. “And the brain pain level is bad if I get less than six hours.”

Yet despite knowing this, Musk seems to be pushing himself further into sleep deprivation—a condition that his own biographer, Walter Isaacson, described as triggering bouts of intense nausea and vomiting due to stress.

The Consequences of Musk’s Sleep Deprivation

Chronic lack of sleep isn’t just unhealthy—it’s dangerous. Studies have linked sleep deprivation to brain fog, mood swings, paranoia, psychotic symptoms, and even death. In extreme cases, it has even been used as a form of torture.

Musk’s insomnia-fueled work ethic appears to be affecting more than just himself. His newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—which he oversees in Trump’s administration—has reportedly been forced into a grueling, 120-hour workweek.

“DOGE is working 120 hours a week,” Musk posted in February 2025. “Our bureaucratic opponents optimistically work 40 hours a week. That is why they are losing so fast.”

To enforce his “all work, no rest” mentality, Musk allegedly moved sofa beds into the Office of Personnel Management, mirroring the same sleep-on-the-job culture he imposed on Twitter employees in 2022.

A Nation at the Mercy of Musk’s Exhaustion?

Unfortunately, The Economist hasn’t updated its graph to track Musk’s Twitter activity since Trump’s re-election. But if his erratic posting, political rants, and relentless feuds are any indication, Musk has entered this post-election period in a state of rage-fueled exhaustion—and the rest of the world may be paying the price.