Guest at the DealBook Summit organized by New York TimesThe boss of the universe
He trusts in a way he rarely does. The event organized in connection with DealBook Summit 2023 New York TimesElon Musk has revealed that he experienced an “existential crisis” at the age of 12, which made him consider ending his life. The head of Tesla, X (formerly Twitter) and Space X remembers having thoughts like: “Is all this useless? Why not just kill yourself? Why exist?”
At the time, Elon Musk was asking himself questions about the meaning of life, reading religious texts and, in particular, German philosophy books, which made him “pretty depressed,” he told Aaron Ross Sorkin. New York Times , on Wednesday November 29th at the DealBook Summit stage. Fortunately, this difficult period will end. However, even today, the 52-year-old billionaire admits. his mind is “often like a very wild storm,” he who constantly says he has an “avalanche of ideas.” “It’s a happy storm,” asks the journalist. “No,” says Musk. I think to some extent I was born that way, but it was reinforced by a difficult childhood, to be honest.”
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Chaotic young years
It must be said that Elon Musk had a painful childhood. He starts with his parents who think he is deaf because he never answers them. A battery of tests will show that he is a very good listener. He just doesn’t want to answer. This already says a lot about his lifestyle and family atmosphere. Indeed, at home, his father, Errol Musk, hits his mother, May. He takes no punches, but suffers from his father’s moods. “My father called me an idiot all the time. You have no idea what a bad person he is,” said the businessman one day, without saying more.
The atmosphere in the college is not better. Musk is an ideal candidate for a school bully: too small, too smart, and too much of a sci-fi fan. “One day some guys pushed him down the stairs and beat him up,” says his biographer Ashley Vance. After that, Elon was hospitalized for a week or two. At that time, in South Africa, the culture of masculinity and athletic masculinity was very present. And Elon was not involved in any sports…” At the age of 15, the teenager is 1.80 m tall and has learned to fight. Since then, he will no longer be the one found huddled in a corner of the playground.
Still bumping into Aaron Ross Sorkin New York TimesElon Musk remembers that as a child, even in “happy moments”, he constantly felt “internally arranged forces”. [son] spirit”. “These demons that haunt my mind are, for the most part, exploited for productive purposes.” To this day, Elon Musk is one of the most powerful people in the world. With a fortune of $10.5 billion (which makes him the richest man on the planet, ahead of Bernard Arnault), he rules X, Tesla, Space X and Neuralink with an iron fist. And he does not intend to stop there, faithful to his boundless ambition.
ScandalsElon Musk. childhood, love and excess
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Source: Le Figaro
