The Daily Schedule Of Elon Musk, From A Morning Doughnut To A 3 A.m. Bedtime

Elon Musk’s life is anything but normal. He’s the head of Tesla and SpaceX, the proprietor of X (former Twitter), and a dad of more than 11 children. 

Top all of that off with an estimated net worth of over $500 billion (as of November 2025), and you have possibly the most recognizable and busiest guy on earth.

But beneath the incessant flow of headlines and business behemoths is a daily routine that, in places, doesn’t sound all that exceptional relative to ours. 

Of course, Musk worked long hours and has been known to go 120 hours without sleep, but his day began with something as mundane as a doughnut.

So what does the richest person in the world do with his days? Take a closer look here at Elon Musk’s surprisingly mundane, and sometimes ridiculous, schedule.

Late Mornings and a Sweet Beginning

While most executives who claim to rise before dawn break their fasts before dawn breaks over their morning coffee cups, Musk wakes around 9 a.m. He does so because he goes to bed around 3 a.m.. 

He admits to never getting the full eight hours the doctor recommends, but gets an average of at least six.

And breakfast for the business mogul with several businesses? Doughnuts. Musk has gone so far as to poke fun at social media with “eating a donut every morning,” but maintains in defense that it’s all about moderation.

Whereas everyone else might envision Musk amidst rocket blueprints or Tesla prototypes during dawn, he’s questioning whether or not to take an additional bite of pastry. It’s a testament to the fact that the most influential figures in the world still retain little joys to wake them up.

Phone First, then Coffee

When Musk gets out of bed, the first thing he does not do is stretch, write in a journal, or meditate. He grabs his phone. He has confessed it’s an atrocious habit he needs to break, but has succumbed to desire so far. 

If it’s to look for emergencies across all his enterprises or read X, his mornings consist of staring at screens.

He has also been known to say, according to biographer Walter Isaacson, that on some mornings, he opens Twitter (before it was his) just to check to see if the app is still working. For Musk, the phone is an extension of routine, like the first sip of breakfast.

Many humans likely relate to this habit, the doomscroll before ever leaving bed. The variable, naturally, is that Musk isn’t scanning memes or weather reports. 

He’s searching out world problems like they might crash stock markets, set back rocket launches, or ruin his multibillion-dollar messaging platform. The stakes just happen to be slightly greater.

The Power of a Shower

If there’s anything Musk insists on when it comes to self-care, it’s showering. At a Reddit AMA, an interviewer wanted to know what nightly routine has the largest impact on his life, and his response was simple: “Showering.” 

It’s a bit of an anomaly in an otherwise inconsistent routine of his.

It’s possibly a humdrum confession, but for a man who’s spent most of his waking life operating in crisis gear, maybe the little ritual provides a fleeting glimmer of normal. 

It’s far from a reach to say it’s the reset button of Musk, something mundane that just makes him a fraction more human before tackling whatever havoc awaits him during the day.

Picking His Ride

Of course, commuting is a bit different when your name is Tesla CEO. For Musk, the daily choice isn’t which bus line to take but which Tesla to take out for a ride. Sometimes it’s a self-driving Model S, sometimes the science-fiction-like Cybertruck. 

The decision, as he has joked previously, is a daily dilemma he has to endure.

For most people, picking between two cars might not feel particularly stressful, but Musk’s rides double as rolling advertisements for his company. Driving a Tesla isn’t just transportation for him; it’s a statement. 

Whether it’s the luxury of the Model S or the boldness of the Cybertruck, his car choice tells the world something about what Tesla stands for that day.

Fitness: A Work in Progress

Physical exercise is where Musk’s routine most closely approaches ours. He has admitted to never exercising much and wanting to do it more often.

His fitness regimen appears to come and go as the rest of life dictates. He once told me his only exercise was throwing his kids around in the air. At another time, threats of a cage fight with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg found him doing reps with heavier weights.

If anything, the flow relationship with exercise makes him more like the everyday employee trying to balance health aspirations with work obligations. Even the planet’s wealthiest individual has trouble being regular when the schedule becomes full.

Crisis Management on Repeat

Musk has also referred to the days spent working with “the crisis of the moment.” Juggling time between Tesla, SpaceX, X, and the rest of his businesses does mean there are never two days alike. 

He may testify in court in the morning, visit a Tesla plant in the afternoon, and attend midnight sessions discussing artificial intelligence before the day is done.

In 2023, he summed up a typical day like so: 

“I go to sleep, I wake up, I work, go to sleep, wake up, work – do that seven days a week,”

This type of grueling work regimen may sound drastic, but it is an expression of his worldview that large, earth-shaking businesses just can’t operate on a typical 40-hour workweek. The sacrifices must be made. 

His fans believe it’s why he has been able to ram through concepts that were previously considered science fiction.

The Midnight Grind

By working till midnight and sometimes through, it becomes second nature to Musk, and so has working late hours on the weekend. 

During the days leading up to acquiring Twitter back in 2022, he was possibly to be found more readily in the early-morning swimming pool of the San Francisco headquarters than in bed.

When Tesla has had problems with manufacturing, he has also spent the night in the plant. Office and home were never strictly separated for him.

Even when he does return home, his mind doesn’t exactly turn off either. He’s even been known to unwind with video games. Ex-partner, singer Grimes, caught him wide awake all night playing “Elden Ring” when it first released.

This yin and yang of intense work and periodic escape defines the paradox of the life of Musk. He’s an efficiency-obsessed perfectionist who also blows through hours on late-night gaming marathons. 

He’s a futurist who is building rockets to Mars, who also contends with typical vices like video time and insomnia.

Lastly, Sleep

By 3 a.m., Musk attempts to finish off the day. He has reduced from his wilder days of all-nighters during his youth and now shoots for six hours of sleep. It’s not decadent, but it’s enough to sustain him.

Even with an unreliable schedule, Musk appears to prioritize sleep more now than in the past. 

The self-proclaimed mogul who bragged about doing little more than sleeping in the past admits now it’s necessary so he can continue to perform on the scale required of his businesses.

Nevertheless, his relationship with sleep is complex. He has been spotted crashing on a couch in Twitter headquarters or dozing on the factory floor during Tesla’s busiest production rushes.

For Elon, rest is something to be taken in pieces and snippets, a resource to recharge just enough before the next blaze requires attention. 

An Extraordinary Routine with Ordinary Touches 

Taking a step back from Elon’s daily routine, it’s an interesting combination of the exceptional and the mundane. He does have to juggle lots of multi-billion dollar enterprises and finish working in the morning late on some days.

But then he starts the morning off with a doughnut, struggles with phone addiction, and skips going to the gym periodically, just like the rest of us do. 

In ways big and small, the schedule reflects the personality of Musk: restless, obsessive, and forward-thinking but also strangely human. 

There’s no impeccably efficient schedule like what you’d think a guy who heads some of the planet’s most ambitious enterprises might maintain. There’s a haphazard mix of habits, excesses, and compromise held together with an iron grip, his work. 

That’s the contradiction of Elon Musk’s existence. He’s big as life in what he creates, but exceedingly human in how he experiences the everyday. And perhaps the appeal lies there. 

The notion that a person who has doughnuts for breakfast and scrolls their phone before rising from bed is able to construct rockets, automobiles, and businesses that redefine the future.

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