Elon Musk told Chinese Tesla workers in a late night speech that their hard work 'warms my heart' — 6 weeks after some complained about bonus cuts

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Elon Musk told Chinese Tesla workers in a late night speech that their hard work 'warms my heart' — 6 weeks after some complained about bonus cuts
Elon Musk and staff from Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory.Tesla/Handout via REUTERS
  • Elon Musk finished his China trip with a late-night speech to staff at Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory.
  • He told them their hard work "warms my heart" and was "very important" to the world.
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In a late-night speech, Elon Musk told Tesla workers at the Shanghai Gigafactory that their hard work "warms my heart."

A video posted by the Chinese state newspaper Global Times shows Musk addressing staff on Wednesday.

"Thank you for being here late at night," he began. "It's been incredibly impressive how you have been able to overcome so many difficulties and so many challenges."

"I just want to let you know, it warms my heart," Musk said, tapping his chest before making a fist pump.

He also made a heart sign with his hands, similar to the one he was filmed making while dancing at a nightclub in San José del Cabo, Mexico, last month.

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"There's so much positive energy, getting things done, that actually, I think, will be very important not just for Tesla but also for the world," Musk added.

Six weeks before his visit, Reuters reported that staff at the Shanghai Gigafactory had their performance bonuses cut following a fatal accident.

Tesla workers then criticized Musk on Chinese social media, and some people even complained to his mom on Twitter.

Wednesday's visit wasn't the first time Musk praised Chinese Tesla staff. Last year, Musk praised the Shanghai factory's 20,000 staff for their work ethic, saying: "They will be burning the 3 a.m. oil."

That came as an internal memo said some workers were required to sleep on the factory floor to keep production going during China's strict COVID lockdowns.

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He's also been encouraging Twitter staff to stay late at the office by building bedrooms at its San Francisco headquarters and telling them to work 80-hour weeks.

Musk told CNBC that he slept around six hours a night, and, according to Jimmy Soni's book "The Founders," Musk was "perpetually sleep-deprived" at his first startup, Zip2.

Musk bought hamburgers and soft drinks for the roughly 100 staff in attendance in Shanghai, and left after an hour, according to Bloomberg.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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