Learn from the books Elon Musk reads. Here’s a list of Elon Musk’s favorite books.
“I was raised by books. Books, and then my parents.”- Elon Musk. Like mentioned in the Book “Elon Musk” and this post, Elon considers his mind a programmable supercomputer to which he can download information. When you want to learn something, it can be downloaded through books. How awesome is that! Now, you can learn what Elon learns from this list om Elon Musk’s favorite books.
This is a complete list of the books read by Elon Musk. There’s a lot of different topics in there, from science to fiction and business. There’ll be something for you too. Guaranteed.
This list will be updated as Elon Musk reads (or downloads) new life-changing books. If you noticed we’ve missed one, please let us know in the comments. Feel free to share your thoughts and ideas for updates. Thank You!
- Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance
- ‘The Lord of the Rings’ by J.R.R. Tolkien
- ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy‘ by Douglas Adams
- ‘Benjamin Franklin: An American Life’ by Walter Isaacson
- ‘Einstein: His Life and Universe‘ by Walter Isaacson
- ‘Structures: Or Why Things Don’t Fall Down’ by J.E. Gordon
- ‘Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants’ by John D. Clark
- ‘Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future’ by Peter Thiel
- ‘Howard Hughes: His Life and Madness’ by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele
- ‘Merchants of Doubt’ by Naomi Orestes and Erik M. Conway
- The ‘Foundation’ trilogy by Isaac Asimov
- The ‘Culture‘ series by Iain M. Banks
- ‘Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence’ by Max Tegmark
- ‘The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin‘ by Benjamin Franklin
- ‘Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman’ by Robert K. Massie
- ‘Twelve Against the Gods: The Story of Adventure’ by William Bolitho
- ‘Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age’ by W. Bernard Carlson
- ‘Tesla: Man out of Time’ by Margaret Cheney
- ‘Aerothermodynamics of Gas Turbine and Rocket Propulsion’ by Gordon C. Oates, J.S. Przemieniecki
- ‘Rocket Propulsion Elements‘ by George P. Sutton, Oscar Biblarz
- ‘International Reference Guide to Space Launch Systems‘ by S. Isakowitz, J. Hopkins, J. Hopkins Jr.
- ‘Fundamentals of Astrodynamics‘ by Roger R. Bate, Donald D. Mueller, Jerry E. White
- ‘The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress‘ by Robert Heinlein
- ‘Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human’ by Eraby James Barrat
- ‘Stranger in a Strange Land‘ (Remembering Tomorrow) by Robert A. Heinlein
- ‘Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies’ by Nick Bostrom
- ‘The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Alone, 1932–1940′ by William Manchester
- ‘I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream: Stories’ by Harlan Ellison
- ‘Look to Windward‘ (Culture) by Iain M. Banks
- ‘My Life & Work — An Autobiography of Henry Ford’ by Henry Ford
- ‘Andrew Carnegie‘ by Joseph Frazier Wall
- ‘If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens … WHERE IS EVERYBODY?: Seventy-Five Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life’ by Stephen Webb
- ‘The Machine Stops‘ by E.M. Forster
- ‘Lord of the Flies‘ by William Golding
- ‘Deep Learning‘ by Ian Goodfellow, Yoshua Bengio, and Aaron Courville
- ‘Lying‘ by Sam Harris
- ‘The Lost Planet‘ by Rachel Searles
- ‘Kill Decision‘ by Daniel Suarez
- ‘Acts of Love‘ by Talulah Riley
Learn About Elon Musk’s Favorite Books
Learn more about the different books on Elon Musk’s book list.
3. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Here’s musk explaining his thoughts on the book.
So then I read Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy which is quite positive I think and it highlighted an important point which is that a lot of times the question is harder than the answer. And if you can properly phrase the question, then the answer is the easy part. So, to the degree that we can better understand the universe, then we can better know what questions to ask. Then whatever the question is that most approximates: what’s the meaning of life? That’s the question we can ultimately get closer to understanding. And so I thought to the degree that we can expand the scope and scale of consciousness and knowledge, then that would be a good thing.
Elon Musk
4. ‘Benjamin Franklin: An American Life’ by Walter Isaacson
He was an entrepreneur. He started from nothing. Actually just like a run-away kid.
Elon Musk
He’s one of the people I most admire. Frankling is pretty awasome.
Elon Musk
8. ‘Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future’ by Peter Thiel
Peter Thiel has built multiple breakthrough companies, and Zero to One shows how.
Elon Musk
11. The ‘Foundation’ Trilogy by Isaac Asimov
Elon Musk on how the “Foundation” is a futuristic version of the book “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” covering, well, the decline of the Roman Empire.
It’s sort of a futuristic version of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Let’s say you were at the peak of the Roman empire, what would you do, what action could you take, to minimise decline?
The lessons of history would suggest that civilisations move in cycles. You can track that back quite far – the Babylonians, the Sumerians, followed by the Egyptians, the Romans, China. We’re obviously in a very upward cycle right now and hopefully that remains the case. But it may not. There could be some series of events that cause that technology level to decline. Given that this is the first time in 4.5bn years where it’s been possible for humanity to extend life beyond Earth, it seems like we’d be wise to act while the window was open and not count on the fact it will be open a long time.
Elon Musk
13. ‘Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence’ by Max Tegmark
36. ‘Lying‘ by Sam Harris
39. ‘Acts of Love‘ by Talulah Riley
Share your favorite books from the list in the comments! If you found a Elon Musk book that’s not on the list, or if you have content to add to this post, please share in the comments.
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