Source: Wikimedia Commons
Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, has stated that he is not afraid of death and that death would actually bring him relief.
Musk stated that he would like to maintain his health for a longer period of time in an interview with Mathias Dopfner, the CEO of the German publishing company Axel Springer.
“I think for political leadership, you want to be ideally within 10 or at least, 20 years of the average age of the population. And for me, I certainly would like to maintain health for a longer period of time. But I am not afraid of dying. I think it would come as a relief,” he explained.
Musk, on the other hand, stated that he hopes to live long enough to see SpaceX’s vision realised.
“My biggest hope is that humanity creates a self-sustaining city on Mars,” he added.
When asked if he is happy right now, Musk replied, “I think there are degrees of love.” But, in order to be completely happy, I believe you must be happy at work and happy in love. So I guess I’m happy in the middle.
“I tried to be as literal as possible. I would be happy if humanity has a self-sustaining city on Mars because then, the probable lifespan of humanity is much greater. I think we really just got this little candle of consciousness, like a small light in the void. And we do not want this small candle in the darkness to be put out.”
Musk stated that we should not try to make people live for extremely long periods of time.
“That it would cause asphyxiation of society because the truth is, most people don’t change their mind. They just die. So if they don’t die, we will be stuck with old ideas and society won’t advance. I think we already have quite a serious issue with gerontocracy, where the leaders of so many countries are extremely old.”
In response to the idea of launching global air taxis, he stated that the landing of such air-borne vehicles would be audible.
“So you would probably be connecting cities that are next to oceans or seas. So you can land far enough offshore that the landing noise is not disturbing to people. It is like an intercontinental rocket,” the Tesla CEO noted.