Sure, and I think the reason he's taking a 6-week break now is that he failed to take sufficient breaks earlier.

I've burnt out myself, and it's no joke. I wish him only the best. But to me the real risk here isn't "senior leader out for long, possibly indefinite period". It's "Tesla has been running a sprint, not a marathon." If somebody this high up is burnt out, what's it like for everybody else?

Given Tesla's precarious cash position this is the time when they really need for things to go smoothly. But if people are at or near burnout, they'll be making mistakes, cutting corners, etc.

Silicon valley likes to pretend you can run a marathon in 45 minutes by breaking it into subsequent 100 meter sprints. Dashing without breaks burns people fast.

I’m on an ongoing campaign to eradicate the word “Sprint” in relation to software delivery from the company I work at, so far with some success. It seems pedantic at first, but using the word “Iteration” in its place does actually seem to be driving an understanding that we’re not going to get everything done in a week, and should instead work steadily towards completion.

6 weeks is quite the break, personally. Does that increase productivity more than 3 or 4 weeks, for example?

Not saying we don't deserve that sort of time off, but it seems somewhat excessive given the circumstances.

Given the pace and pressure of everything they've been through and everything they're about to go through again, I'd say six weeks sounds about right.