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Former senior execs say Elon Musk's Boring Company is struggling to retain staff amid culture of long working hours

FILE PHOTO - Elon Musk arrives to speak at Boring Company community meeting in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California, U.S. May 17, 2018. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/File Photo
Elon Musk, founder of The Boring Company. Thomson Reuters

  • Elon Musk's The Boring Company has struggled to retain employees, former execs told the WSJ.
  • In particular, the tunnel-digging firm has lost engineers and technical staff, per the execs.
  • They said Boring Company staff have to work long hours and weekends, similar to Musk's other firms.
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Elon Musk's The Boring Company has struggled to retain employees amid a culture of long working hours, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing former senior executives.

In particular, those who have left the tunneling venture include engineers and other staff in technical roles, the former executives told the Journal.

Staff at The Boring Company are known to work long hours and weekends, the former executives said. The Journal's report suggests The Boring Company hasn't escaped Musk's strict leadership style, which aligns with the work culture at his other companies, such as Tesla, SpaceX, and now Twitter.

The billionaire has spoken in the past about his strict work ethic, which he says involves working 120-hour weeks, and sleeping on couches in his factories and on office floors.

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Musk also expects the same from his employees. Tesla and SpaceX workers have described grueling working conditions to meet Musk's company goals.

Meanwhile, at Twitter, Musk recently told Twitter staff in an email that they "need to be extremely hardcore" and work "long hours at high intensity" to build his vision of "Twitter 2.0." If employees didn't agree to this, then they'd leave Twitter with three months' salary, he said. Even staff who committed to Musk's new Twitter were laid off, according to Platformer and Bloomberg.

The Boring Company didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment made outside of normal US operating hours.

The company opened an underground transport system, the Las Vegas Convention Center Loop, in April 2021. The 1.7-mile tunnel network has three stops. It also submitted plans to build a 6.2-mile tunnel transit system in Miami, Insider reported in February.

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