Elon Musk says his mind is a 'storm’—and he calms it by playing video games, his ‘primary recreational activity'
Elon Musk says his mind is a 'storm’—and he calms it by playing video games, his ‘primary recreational activity'
"Killing the demons in a video game calms the demons in my mind,” says the world's richest man.
Anyone who runs a company needs a way to de-stress. For some CEOs that might mean golf or sailing. For Elon Musk, who runs or owns Tesla, SpaceX, and X (formerly Twitter), the main method is playing video games.
“It calms my mind. Killing the demons in a video game calms the demons in my mind,” Musk told podcaster Lex Fridman in an episode released Friday. He added later, “I’ve played a lot of video games because it’s my primary recreational activity.”
The world’s richest man also said, “My mind is a storm. I don’t think most people would want to be me. They may think they would want to be me, but they don’t, they don’t know, they don’t understand.”
Musk’s longtime companion Grimes, with whom he has three children, told biographer Walter Isaacson that Musk has no “hobbies or ways to relax other than video games, but he takes those so seriously that it gets very intense.”
Among his favorite titles is The Battle of Polytopia, billed as a “strategy game about building a civilization and going into battle.” Players compete to control resources and develop technologies, and they wage battles in order to build an empire. Musk’s brother Kimbal told Isaacson that his famous sibling said Polytopia “would teach me to be a CEO like he was.” The game was also fodder for a series of life and business lessons for Elon, with the first one being, “Empathy is not an asset.”
Another favorite of Musk’s is Elden Ring, centered on war and empire-building, which he told Fridman was a “candidate for the best game ever, top five for sure.” He added that it’s “incredibly creative” with “stunning” art.
“Beating hatred in the internal realm,” he added, “is the hardest boss battle in life and in the video game.”
Musk’s game-playing has also preceded some key business decisions. He pulled the trigger on buying Twitter right after playing Elden Ring until five in the morning, Grimes told Isaacson.
Mostly, Musk seems to use video games to get into a certain zone.
“If you play a tough video game, you can get into a state of flow which is very enjoyable. Admittedly it needs to be not too easy, not too hard—kind of in the Goldilocks zone,” he told Fridman.
“I guess you generally want to feel like you’re progressing in the game. And there’s also beautiful art, engaging storylines, and it’s like an amazing puzzle to solve.”
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"I don’t think most people would want to be me. They may think they would want to be me, but they don’t, they don’t know, they don’t understand.”
You can buy a solution to almost any problem a human could face shut the fuck up
can't buy a decent personality.
But he really, really could. He could hire a bloated team of the world's best psychologists to break down exactly what the fuck is going on in his head, what exactly the reason is for any social fuckup he's ever made, and what he should do to improve. That's the thing about the amount of money he has. So many things will pop into your head like "well you can't buy that at least" but he totally could.
I mean, he doesn't even need to do that. Just hire a PR firm that can clean up his image and restore it back to that cringe "OMG REAL LIFE TONY STARK"
image he had in the eyes of libs beforeHe believes he is perfect, or so close to it that he's an ascended being that us rabble can not begin to comprehend, so of course he doesn't want to be told what he could change. Narcissists with a lot less money than him make the same decision all the time about deciding it's everyone else that should change, and for him, his brand and his identity is deeply invested in the cringe shit he presents already.
To quote Ron white he has the right to remain silent but not the ability.
He could do all of that but then the psychologist would tell him "people don't like how you act like a genius even though the stuff you say is the kind of thing a 9th grader comes up with after trying weed for the first time"
And them musk would fire him
What I have thanks to money, what i pay for, i.e, what money can buy, that is what I, the possessor of the money, am myself. My power is as great as the power of money. The properties of money are my- (its owner's)- properties and faculties. Thus what I am and what I am capable of is by no means determined by my individuality. I am ugly, but I can buy myself the most beautiful women. Consequently, I am not ugly, for the effect of ugliness, its power of repulsion, is annulled by money. As an individual I am lame, but money can create twenty four feet for me; so I am not lame; I am wicked, dishonest man without conscience or intellect, but money is honored and so also is its possessor. Money is the highest good and so its possessor is good. Money relieves me of the trouble of being dishonest, so I am presumed to be honest. I may have no intellect, but money is the true mind of all things and so how should its possessor have no intellect? Morever he can buy himself intellectuals, and is not the man who has power over intellectuals not more of [an] intellectual than they?
- KM, P&E Manuscripts
He has 10s of billions of dollars and chooses to use it to set on fire and play video games.
Any normal person would do like LSD skydiving over the natural wonders of the world.
He's literally squandering the opportunity to do literally whatever he wants and still wants people to feel bad for him.