Elon Musk agrees with Jensen Huang's work ethic — Here's what Nvidia CEO believes makes a good leader

World's richest man, Elon Musk, who recently crossed the record $700 billion worth milestone, in a post on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), agreed with and boosted Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's view on work ethic and leadership.

“This is the way,” wrote Elon Musk on a clip of Jensen Huang's March 2024 interview at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where the Nvidia chief recalled his time doing odd jobs such as a busboy and a waiter.

‘No task beneath me’ says Jensen Huang

“To me, no task is beneath me because, remember, I used to be a dishwasher [and] I used to clean toilets. I’ve cleaned a lot of toilets. I’ve cleaned more toilets than all of you (audience) combined. And some of them I just can’t unsee. That's life,” Huang said while discussing his job at Denny's.

“You can’t show me a task that’s beneath me. I’m not doing it only because whether it’s beneath me or not. If you send me something and you want my input on it, and I can be of service to you, and in my review of it, share with you how I reasoned through it, I’ve made a contribution to you. I’ve made it possible for you to see how I reasoned through something,” he said.

On how this shapes his leadership, Huang added, “And by reasoning, as you know, how someone reasons through something empowers you. ‘oh my gosh, that’s how you reason through this! It’s not as complicated as it seems’. And so I show people how to reason through things all the time. Strategy, how to forecast, how to break a problem down, and you're empowering people. That's how I see it.”

Jensen Huang Dennys' busboy to billionaire technocrat

In August 2024, Jensen Huang's LinkedIn profile listing his work as waiter, dishwasher, and busboy between 1978 to 1983 went viral.

Born in Taiwan and immigrated to the US at age five, the 61-year-old billionaire holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Oregon State University and a master’s degree in engineering from Stanford University.

On leadership: ‘Torture you into greatness’

Further, Huang in another interview with The Transcript also shared that he seldom fires people but instead tries to help employees learn to do their jobs, and “would rather improve you than give up on you”.

“When you fire somebody, you're saying, a lot of people say: 'it wasn't your fault', or 'I made the wrong choice', or 'there are very few jobs'. Look, I used to clean bathrooms, and now I'm the CEO of a company. I think you can learn it. I'm pretty certain you can learn this. And there are a lot of things in life that I believe you can learn, and you just have to be given the opportunity to learn it,” Huang said.

“I had the benefit of watching a lot of smart people do a lot of things. I'm surrounded by 60 people. They're doing smart things all the time, and they probably don't realize it, but I'm learning constantly from every single one of them. And so I don't like giving up on people because I think they could improve,” he added.

"And so it's tongue in cheek, but people know that I rather torture them into greatness. So, I would rather torture you into greatness because I believe in you. And I think coaches that that really believe in their team, torture them into greatness. And oftentimes, they're so close, don't give up. They're so close to greatness," Huang said.

WATCH: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on founding NVIDIA, funding, challenges, and his views on the AI revolution