'Trying to avoid work' | Elon Musk's latest 'work ethic' rant demonstrates why burnout is at crisis levels

Viewing workers not as complex human beings with a myriad of needs, but simply as a means to an end – a stage in a process that results in profit – is not only morally corrupt, but from a HR perspective, is a sure-fire way to wind up facing a widespread crisis.

This is why, when Elon Musk, the richest man in the world and founder of both electric car company Tesla and space exploration firm SpaceX, recently praised workers at Tesla’s Chinese factory for ‘burning the midnight oil’, as reported by The Guardian, HR leaders the world over cringed.

Speaking on Tuesday at Tesla’s Shanghai ‘Giga-factory’, Musk noted that he considered the work ethic of his Western workers, most notably a refusal to work until three in the morning, or seemingly dare to leave their place of work at all, to be nothing but pure laziness.

“There is just a lot of super talented hardworking people in China who strongly believe in manufacturing,” he said. “They won’t just be burning the midnight oil, they will be burning the 3am oil, they won’t even leave the factory type of thing, whereas in America people are trying to avoid going to work at all.”