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Elon Musk tweets about 'terrible lows and unrelenting stress'

Musk shows tech entrepreneurship and worldwide fame aren't all they're cracked up to be.

Katie Collins Senior European Correspondent
Katie a UK-based news reporter and features writer. Officially, she is CNET's European correspondent, covering tech policy and Big Tech in the EU and UK. Unofficially, she serves as CNET's Taylor Swift correspondent. You can also find her writing about tech for good, ethics and human rights, the climate crisis, robots, travel and digital culture. She was once described a "living synth" by London's Evening Standard for having a microchip injected into her hand.
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Katie Collins
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From the outside it appears Elon Musk leads a pretty sweet life, but what is it really like being a world-famous business magnate, engineer and inventor?

In a series of tweets on Monday, Musk tweeted replies to questions by other Twitter users about his mental state, including some of the inner turmoil he struggles with.

"The reality is great highs, terrible lows and unrelenting stress. Don't think people want to hear about the last two," he said in one tweet.

When asked by one user whether he was bipolar, he answered "Yeah," before adding in a follow-up tweet: "Maybe not medically tho. Dunno. Bad feelings correlate to bad events, so maybe real problem is getting carried away in what I sign up for."

It's important to note that bipolar disorder is more than just severe mood swings, and should be properly diagnosed by a psychiatrist, but Musk's honesty about the ups and downs of his life is refreshing.

Musk said that his way of dealing with the lows is to "take the pain and make sure you really care about what you're doing."

"If you buy a ticket to hell, it isn't fair to blame hell…" he said. So there you have it, straight from the horse's mouth -- tech entrepreneurship and the fame that comes with it isn't always what it's cracked up to be.

Musk it seems has his own way of dealing with his problems. But if you struggle with any of the issues he talks about, remember it's best to seek professional help.