REUTERS/Mike Blake
- Elon Musk said Monday that he rejected multiple 'high-paid' Wall Street jobs, Bloomberg reported.
- Musk didn't say when he rejected the jobs, or which companies tried to hire him.
- Musk made the remarks as part of a court case into Tesla's acquisition of SolarCity.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk claims he rejected "several" lucrative jobs on Wall Street to instead focus on the booming tech industry.
"I was offered several high-paid jobs on Wall Street," Musk told a court in Delaware on Monday, per a report by Bloomberg. "I declined."
He didn't elaborate on what the roles were, or which companies tried to hire him.
Musk made the remarks as part of a court case into Tesla's 2016 acquisition of solar panel firm SolarCity. The company's shareholders sued him and other Tesla board members in 2017, claiming Tesla effectively bailed out SolarCity, which was founded by two of Musk's cousins.
Every Tesla board member named in the suit other than Musk settled for $60 million in January 2020.
Rather than getting into finance, Musk entered tech - and it paid off. Musk has flip-flopped with former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos as the world's richest person since January, and is currently worth $187 billion, according to Bloomberg's Billionaire Index.
Musk is the CEO of automaker Tesla and aerospace giant SpaceX, and plays an active role in neurotech company Neuralink and tunnel-maker The Boring Company, both of which he founded.
He has also dabbled in finance, despite never having a job on Wall Street. Musk set up the online bank X.com, which later became PayPal, and is a huge advocate of cryptocurrencies such as Dogecoin.
Both the tech and finance industries are known for long working weeks and high rates of burnout. Musk has previously said he works between 85 to 100 hours each week , and has to split his day into five-minute slots so he can fit everything in.
He said at Monday's hearing that he "hates" being the CEO of Tesla and would rather spend his time on design and engineering.
Musk has ambitious plans for his fortunes - he has repeatedly said he plans to sell most of his possessions, including all his houses, to fund a colony on Mars.