Perhaps unknown to the audience and livestream viewers of July’s Tesla Model 3 launch event, was that its star — billionaire CEO Elon Musk — was heartbroken as he introduced the world to his long-awaited electric car.
The heartbreak, according to Rolling Stone‘s new cover story, was not over the event itself or anything business-related — but the breakup with his ex-girlfriend, actress Amber Heard.
“I was really in love, and it hurt bad,” Musk told the magazine in early August (the writer notes the July 28 launch event occurred one week prior to that conversation). “I’ve been in severe emotional pain for the last few weeks,” Musk continued. “Severe. It took every ounce of will to be able to do the Model 3 event and not look like the most depressed guy around.
“For most of that day, I was morbid,” Musk added. “And then I had to psych myself up: drink a couple of Red Bulls, hang out with positive people and then, like, tell myself: ‘I have all these people depending on me. All right, do it!'”
On Aug. 7, People first reported that Musk and Heard split up. The report cited the couple’s busy schedules, noting that they were “very serious about each other.”
The Rolling Stone interview then took a turn, with Musk asking: “Is there anybody you think I should date? It’s so hard for me to even meet people.
“If I’m not in love, if I’m not with a long-term companion, I cannot be happy,” he added.
Much of the interview was emotional, with Musk musing on not only past relationships, but his childhood, family, and self-made rise to the top of the business world.
The entrepreneur is currently overseeing a slew of high-profile projects, including Tesla’s drive to make electric cars go mainstream, SpaceX’s mission to put men on Mars, and the Boring Company’s development of a city-to-city transportation system known as Hyperloop.