The founder of Xiaomi is taking a leaf out of Elon Musk's playbook, posting a picture of himself napping on the factory floor

• Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun posted a photo of himself sleeping on the factory floor.
• Lei was celebrating an EV production milestone — 100,000 units of the Xiaomi SU7.
• Xiaomi launched the Xiaomi SU7 in March and makes four versions of the car.

Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun is celebrating a new EV production milestone — and is showing how committed he is to the hustle life.

"Good morning! Woke up to the news that 100,000 units of Xiaomi SU7 achieved!" Lei wrote in an X post published on Tuesday.

The Xiaomi founder-CEO included a photo of himself sleeping on a white mattress on the factory floor.

"From the launch to today, it took us only 230 days to hit this milestone. For a newcomer in the EV industry, that's a speed we're truly proud of," Lei added.

The SU7, or Speed Ultra 7, is Xiaomi's first electric vehicle. The Chinese tech giant, which is best known for its smartphones, produces four versions of the car: SU7, SU7 Pro, SU7 Max, and SU7 Ultra.

The EV was launched in March and has been praised by Ford CEO Jim Farley.

Farley said in an October interview on "The Fully Charged Podcast" that he'd been driving a Xiaomi SU7 for the past half year and didn't want to give it up.

"It's fantastic. They sell 10,000, 20,000 a month. They're sold out for six months," Farley said of Xiaomi's success with the SU7.

But the SU7's popularity has come at a cost for Xiaomi. Its EV branch posted an adjusted loss of $252 million during its second-quarter earnings report in August.

Xiaomi said in August that it had delivered 27,307 SU7s in the second quarter. This means that Xiaomi lost about $9,200 for each car. The SU7 is sold at a base price of 215,900 yuan, or about $30,000, and is available only in China.

A spokesperson for Xiaomi told BI's Matthew Loh in August that the company was looking to lower its production costs by increasing the scale of its EV arm.

"In addition, Xiaomi's first EV is a pure electric sedan, and its investment cost is relatively high, so it will take some time to digest this part of the cost," the spokesperson said.

Sleeping on the factory floor

Elon Musk, for his part, has talked about sleeping on Tesla's factory floors to set an example for his employees.

The Tesla CEO said in November 2022 that he'd lived in Tesla's Fremont and Nevada factories for "three years straight" and slept on the floors.

"The reason I slept on the floor was not because I couldn't go across the road and be at a hotel," Musk said in a Bloomberg interview in 2018.

"It was because I wanted my circumstances to be worse than anyone else at the company. Whenever they felt pain, I wanted mine to be worse," he continued.

It's unclear if Lei was making a direct reference to Musk in his X post. Musk did not respond to Lei's post.

When approached for comment, a spokesperson for Xiaomi told BI that Lei's photo was meant as "a pre-heat to the announcement of the production of the 100,000th unit of Xiaomi SU7 at the Xiaomi EV Factory."

"It also fits the meaning of 'ready to go' in the context of Eastern culture," the spokesperson said.

Lei, 54, has been dubbed "The Steve Jobs of China." Like the late Apple founder, Lei is fond of donning black shirts, light blue jeans, and sneakers while unveiling Xiaomi's products.

In 2014, Lei included a "one more thing" tease before introducing a new smartphone near the end of his presentation. The presentation tactic was made famous by Jobs, who often used it to drop surprise announcements.

November 14, 4:50 a.m. — This story has been updated with comments from a Xiaomi spokesperson.