Despite having a net worth of around $500 billion, Elon Musk isn’t slowing down anytime soon. When asked why he keeps working despite already being immensely wealthy, Musk shared a deeply personal and thoughtful answer during his appearance on the Tesla Beat podcast. He explained that his motivation comes from an existential crisis he faced as a teenager, when reading traditional philosophy and religious texts left him without clear answers about the meaning of life.
The turning point came when Musk discovered Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a comedy sci-fi novel that shifted his perspective. He realized that perhaps the real question isn’t “What is the meaning of life?” but rather, “What questions should we be asking?” For Musk, the universe itself holds the answers, but humanity must first expand its consciousness to even understand what questions to ask. This belief is at the heart of his dedication to making humanity a multi-planetary species.
Musk emphasized that exploring beyond Earth is essential to expanding human understanding and consciousness. Becoming a multi-planet and eventually a multi-stellar species, blending both biological and digital forms of intelligence, offers humanity the best chance to unravel the mysteries of existence. For Musk, retiring early is not an option unless humans succeed in colonizing other worlds.
