Elon Musk has warned budding entrepreneurs hoping to emulate his success to “be careful what they wish for”.

Speaking to a business forum in Bali on Monday when asked what an up-and-coming “Elon Musk of the East” should focus on, he said he “wasn’t sure how many people would actually like to be me”.

“They would like to be what they imagine being me, which is not the same,” he continued. “I mean, the amount that I torture myself, is the next level, frankly.”

Musk was speaking at the B20 business forum ahead of a summit of the Group of 20 leading economies taking place on the Indonesian island.

The new Twitter owner joined the conference by video link just weeks after completing his heavily scrutinised takeover of the social network.

He had been expected to attend the event in person, but Indonesian government minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, responsible for coordinating preparations for the summit, said Musk could not attend because he’s preparing for a court case this week.

Testimony began on Monday in Delaware where Tesla shareholders are challenging Musk’s compensation plan as CEO, potentially worth more than $55bn (£47bn).

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“My workload has recently increased quite a lot,” he said with a chuckle in a reference to the Twitter deal. “I mean, oh, man. I have too much work on my plate, that is for sure.”

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Musk appeared in a darkened room, saying there had been a power cut just before he connected, with his face projected on to a large screen over the summit hall.

He bought Twitter for $44bn (£37bn) last month and quickly dismissed the company’s board of directors and top executives.

He laid off much of the rest of the company’s full-time workforce by email earlier this month and is now eliminating the jobs of outsourced contractors tasked with fighting misinformation and other harmful content as he begins his campaign to ease restrictions on what users can say on the platform.

Musk acknowledged that his recent moves regarding Twitter had been controversial adding: “There’s no way to make everyone happy, that’s for sure.”

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