Elon Musk admits that Tesla nearly died

Tesla was on the list of critics earlier this year.

That's what founder Elon Musk said Sunday in an interview broadcast on "Axios on HBO".

Tesla's CEO said the electric car company was about to die in single-digit weeks.

Musk said Tesla "blew money like crazy" during the ramp-up of its model 3 and almost fell, according to MarketWatch.

"The company was bleeding money crazy, and if we did not fix it in a very short time, we would die. And it was extremely difficult to solve them, "said Musk.

Musk admitted that he had been strained. "People should not work so hard," he said of his work 22 hours a day, seven days a week. "It's very painful."

"It hurts my brain and my heart," said Musk. "It hurts, it's not recommended to anyone, I just did it because if I did not do it … there was a good chance Tesla would die.

At the end of October, Tesla published an unexpected quarterly profit. Earlier this month, Musk said Tesla was no longer going to "face death" and that his cash flow would probably be positive.

Tesla shares are up about 4.6% since the beginning of the year, compared to a loss of 1.5% for the S & P 500.