Elon Musk attended the opening of the Tesla Gigafactory for electric vehicles in Gruenheide, Germany. (File)
New Delhi:
Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, doesn’t care about one thing: long life. In a recent interview with Matthias Dobfner, CEO of Axel Springer, at the Tesla plant in Fremont, California, Mr. Musk discussed a number of topics, when he made a comment on the longevity.
Mr. Musk said he would like to maintain his health for a longer period of time, but he is not afraid of death. “I’m not afraid of death,” he said. “I think that would help me.”
When Mr. Dopfner asked about “longevity” and “significantly increased lifespan”, Mr. Musk gave a straightforward answer.
Mr. Musk Response He was, “I don’t think we should try to get people to live really long. It would suffocate society because the truth is most people don’t change their minds. They just die. So, if they don’t die, we get stuck in old ideas and society won’t progress.”
Among the other issues he discussed were the Russian-Ukrainian crisis, space exploration, and even loneliness. He said he’s sure everyone has felt lonely at times, and he went on to add that, for example, if he wasn’t working on a Starship rocket and was home alone, he might have missed his dog. “I feel lonely because I’m only in a small house alone without a dog,” said Mr. Musk.
Musk believes that “age rule” is unhealthy, with government largely controlled by people much older than the majority of the population. Noting that the United States has “a very, very old leadership”, he added that for leaders it is “impossible to stay in touch with the people.”
In the same vein, he said that although the founders of the United States had set a minimum age for local office, they did not include maximum ages because they did not expect humans to live long. “I think for political leadership, it’s best to be within at least 10 or 20 years of the average age of the population,” said Mr. Musk.
On a lighter note, when Mr. Dopfner said that Mr. Musk might not be “able to see SpaceX’s vision come true” in his lifetime, the Tesla CEO replied, “I’d like to live long enough to see that.”
On the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Musk said the US government has done too much, but added, “We can’t allow Putin to take over Ukraine.”