The Way Elon Musk Manages 5 Kids And 3 Businesses Has People Up In Arms

Elon Musk is the founder of Tesla Motor Company, he's the chairman of SolarCity, and he created SpaceX.

He also has five children.

How does he manage it all?

By responding to emails while he interacts with his children.

He says his children are at the age where they don't require his undivided attention, and he can respond to them while zipping through a few messages.

"Kids are awesome," he told the audience at South by Southwest. "You guys should all have kids ... I don't see mine enough actually. But what I find is I'm able to be with them and still be on email. I can be with them and still be working at the same time ... If I didn't, I wouldn't be able to get my job done."

The 1,000+ person audience didn't like that advice. After Musk left the stage, we heard people muttering, ""I thought he was a nice guy until that" and "Why does he have kids?"

@sai @shontelaylay quality time versus quantity time. Being with kids while sending emails doesn't seem big quality

— Carles Carrera (@carles337) March 9, 2013