If you own 5 companies then you're CEO of 5 companies at the same time.<p>Companies are just fiefdoms and 'CEO' or any other title the lord gives themselves is just that. Like Kings ruled over country, or countries, the quantity does not matter at scale. Yeah as such 1 king, sorry, 1 CEO couldn't rule over 1000 companies that were each 1 person working - that would be 1000 people reporting and asking questions of 1 person. But at scale, the people at Tesla, etc, don't report to Musk.<p>If anything, at the scale these companies are at a CEO is worth their connections and as one of the handful of men considered "Richest people in the world" he has access to anyone at anytime, it seems. He has access to any and all resources. So if there is a problem at any one of these companies that cannot be solved by the entire company beneath him, then Musk most likely has the access to solve it - but these issues are few and far between, realistically.<p>At worst, he fills his time by inserting himself into problems that he's not capable of solving (looking at you hyperloop) and at best, he spends his days chillin responding to emails, attending fancy lunches and dinners, and attending boring meetings.