The tech mogul revealed a dark chapter of his life at the 2023 DealBook Summit.
On Wednesday, Elon Musk spoke about an “existential crisis” he suffered when he was 12 years old. The phenomenon caused the now well-known billionaire and CEO of Tesla Motors to contemplate taking his own life.
During the DealBook 2023 Summit on Wednesday, the 52-year-old business owner told Aaron Ross Sorkin about New York Times who ever thought about ending things during his teenage years.
“Is it all useless? Why not just kill yourself? Why exist?’” Musk said.
At that time, Musk read religious texts, specifically German philosophy books, which made him quite depressed.
Everything changed when he picked up and read a copy of Douglas Adams. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Musk soon realized that finding purpose in life is not just a black and white answer, but the questions we ask along the way.
“My motivation then was, well, my life is really finite… but if we can expand the scope and scale of consciousness then we will be better able to figure out what questions to ask about the answer that is the universe and maybe we can figure it out. what is the meaning of life,” Musk said.
News from heaven
The investor and businessman also told Sorkin, 46, that his mind “often feels like a very wild storm” because of the “wellspring of ideas” that constantly emerge.
Sorkin then asked if the “storm” Musk mentioned was a “happy storm.”
This made Musk pause for a moment before replying, “No.”
“I think to some extent I was born that way, but frankly, that was amplified by a difficult childhood,” he explained.
A piece of 2022 New York Times He also revealed that Musk was “heavily bullied” at the high school he attended in South Africa.
Musk reflected that even during a “happy moment” as a child, he felt “a fury of forces in [his] mind constantly.”
“These demons of the mind are, for the most part, harnessed for productive purposes,” Musk said, reflecting on all the business accolades he has achieved over the years.
Then he realized, “Every once in a while, you know, they go wrong.”
Good. There you go. Even billionaires have their difficulties.
Categories: Biography
Source: vcmp.edu.vn