Elon Musk on the birthday decision that cost him four operations One sumo match. Four surgeries. Elon: "still hurts a little bit actually. I've had like four operations really from that." It happened at his own birthday party. Elon: "the world champion sumo wrestler, they did kind of like a demo bout for my birthday. And since it was my birthday, I guess they just call up the birthday boy and say like, hey, do you want to sumo wrestle." His opponent outweighed him by 50%. Elon: "he was 50% heavier than me. So, like, I don't know, 360, 370 pounds." Elon: "I knew he'd take it easy on me in the first round, so the only way I'm going to knock him over is momentum. So I've got to basically run at him." Elon: "so I did run at him, did a judo throw, knocked him over, and smashed the disc in my neck in the process. It'd be like running at a wall." He won that round. Elon: "you can defeat someone bigger than you if you're willing to smash a disc in your neck." Elon: "he wasn't expecting me to be a total lunatic on round one." Elon: "so I had like five minutes of glory and a decade of pain."