11 books Elon Musk thinks everyone should read

12.04.2018 22:54

Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, Tesla, and other larger-than-life tech companies, somehow also seems to find time to read.

From epic works of fantasy, like "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, to complex how-tos on building rockets, Musk credits books with helping him achieve success.

We looked through Musk's past interviews and social media history to come up with a list of 11 books the billionaire entrepreneur thinks everyone should read.

Take a look below.

'The Lord of the Rings' by J.R.R. Tolkien

Amazon

Musk had a nickname when he was a shrimpy, smart-mouthed kid growing up in South Africa: Muskrat.

The New Yorker reported in 2009 that "in his loneliness, he read a lot of fantasy and science fiction."

Those books — notably "The Lord of the Rings" by J.R.R. Tolkien — shaped Musk's vision of his future self.

"The heroes of the books I read always felt a duty to save the world," he told The New Yorker.

For those who've already read the books and seen the movies but are still hurting for more Middle Earth, Amazon officially announced it's making a "Lord of the Rings" TV series.

Buy it here.

'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' by Douglas Adams

Amazon

In this comedic sci-fi book, a supercomputer finds the "answer" to a meaningful life — it's the number 42.

To Musk, who read this book as a young teenager in South Africa, the book was instrumental to his thinking.

Musk was so enamored with the text, in fact, that when he launched his Tesla roadster into space, he put the words "Don't Panic!" on the car's center screen.

Those words graced the cover of some early editions of the book.

When asked in a 2015 interview about his favorite spaceship from science fiction, he said, "I'd have to say that would be the one in 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' that's powered by the improbability drive."

Buy it here.

'Benjamin Franklin: An American Life' by Walter Isaacson

Amazon

Musk has called Benjamin Franklin "one of his heroes," in multiple interviews.

Franklin was one of the US' founding fathers and an accomplished inventor.

He was one of the first to prove that lightning is indeed electricity in his famous kite experiment, which led to the invention of the lightning rod. Franklin is also credited with the invention of bifocals, which are glasses comprised of two distinct optical lenses.

In this biography of Franklin, "you can see how he was an entrepreneur," Musk said in an interview with Foundation, a platform for nonprofits working on climate change issues. "He was an entrepreneur. He started from nothing. He was just a runaway kid."

He added: "Franklin's pretty awesome."

Buy it here.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider