Elon Musk States in Interview That Reading Religious Texts and Philosophical Works (Including Schopenhauer and Nietzsche) Has Not Provided Answers
Elon Musk stated in an interview that despite his net worth reaching the trillion-dollar level, he continues to work intensely due to a severe existential crisis he experienced as a teenager, during which he could not understand the meaning of life.
He has not found answers even after reading religious texts and philosophical works (including Schopenhauer and Nietzsche); after reading Douglas Adams' "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," he realized that the issue is not about finding the meaning of life, but rather that humanity has yet to figure out what the right questions are.
In the book, Earth, as a supercomputer, takes millions of years to arrive at the answer "42," but no one knows what the corresponding question is; Musk believes that the universe itself is the answer, and humanity's task is to expand the scale and scope of consciousness in order to ask better questions.
He is therefore advocating for humanity to become a multi-planetary and even interstellar species, allowing biological consciousness to reach more planets while developing artificial intelligence to enhance humanity's ability to explore the universe alongside digital intelligence.
Musk directly associates this concept with the transition to sustainable energy, Mars colonization, and AI development; he has repeatedly stated that expanding the range and scale of consciousness is essential for better understanding the nature of the universe and for having the opportunity to answer questions like "Why are we here?"
This motivation drives his personal wealth and time investment into projects like SpaceX rockets, Tesla's energy transition, and xAI, with funding directed towards infrastructure that can expand consciousness; under this event-driven approach, technological breakthroughs and multi-planetary capabilities become long-term goals, while short-term financial returns or leisure are secondary, with risks and execution pressures concentrated on the founders and related companies.
He once labeled the dashboard of the Tesla Roadster sent into space in 2018 with "DON’T PANIC" and has frequently cited this series as a philosophical foundation.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Musk has been influenced by "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" since his youth, making "asking the right questions" a core philosophy that runs through his entrepreneurial path: founding SpaceX in 2002 to reduce space costs and promote multi-planetary survival, joining Tesla in 2004 to accelerate sustainable energy, and founding xAI in 2023 to pursue understanding the true nature of the universe.
In terms of capital, he continuously allocates personal equity and company resources to rockets, electric vehicles, brain-machine interfaces, and AI infrastructure; the motivation is to expand the range of biological and digital consciousness, enabling humanity to ask and answer deeper questions about the universe, rather than merely pursuing financial returns or market position.
Similar cases include the historical pursuit of "the right questions" during scientific revolutions (such as Newton and Einstein's inquiries into fundamental laws), as well as contemporary AI laboratories using computational power to explore the boundaries of intelligence; humanity is currently in the early stages of expanding technological capabilities from a single planet to multi-planetary and digital intelligence.
The essence lies in technological substitution and the expansion of consciousness: through engineering means, consciousness is pushed beyond the limitations of Earth to a broader scale, allowing humanity to shift from passively receiving answers from the universe to actively constructing a larger "computer" to ask better questions, thereby changing the time scale and risk distribution of civilization.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
When answers appear before questions, first expand the range of those who can ask.
Wealth is merely a means; the expansion of consciousness is the goal.
A single-planet civilization cannot ask the questions that a multi-planet civilization can.