A new book on Elon Musk argues that the billionaire’s drive to build companies like Tesla and SpaceX stems less from financial ambition than from a lifelong curiosity about the universe and a desire to expand humanity’s reach into space.
Author Eric Jorgenson, who wrote “The Book of Elon: A Guide to Purpose and Success,” discussed the book with Fox News Digital, describing Musk’s worldview as shaped by what Musk himself calls “the philosophy of curiosity.”
“He’s driven by this bigger mission of understanding more about the universe, of building new things that help us reach new frontiers, new places and continue to expand and protect humanity,” Jorgenson said. He pointed to Musk’s creation of two trillion-dollar companies over the past 25 years and his tendency to take a longer-range view of financial returns than many other executives.
“All of his projects are really fueled by his fundamental worldview, what he calls the philosophy of curiosity. He believes that all these answers are out in the universe, and we’re just sort of surrounded by mysteries, and science and engineering and technological progress is this method of understanding and learning more about the universe,” Jorgenson said. “If you see his life’s work through that lens, it starts to make a lot more sense.”
The book, which Jorgenson said took years to complete, draws on what he calls “the wisdom of titans of tech.” It also details what Jorgenson describes as Musk’s five-step engineering process, nicknamed “the algorithm,” and how Tesla and SpaceX apply it. The book additionally covers Musk’s founding of xAI, which Jorgenson describes as a “truth-seeking AI” venture, and its merger with SpaceX’s AI operations.
The timing of the book’s release comes as Musk, the 55-year-old chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, has been tapped by War Secretary Pete Hegseth to help the Pentagon determine which weapons and technologies American troops will need for future conflicts.
Ideas formed in college
Jorgenson said one of the most striking discoveries in researching the book was how early Musk’s major ideas took shape.
“One of the most interesting things that I discovered is that these ideas that Elon’s had, his notions about making life multi-planetary, about electric cars, about autonomous cars, started when he was in college. He’s had these ideas since he was very young,” Jorgenson said, adding that Musk, now in his 50s, continues to build and expand companies rather than step back.
Jorgenson contrasted Musk’s trajectory with that of other tech entrepreneurs who have moved into space exploration. “If you think about the arc of Jeff Bezos’ career after leaving Amazon, he sort of much more passively pursued space, whereas Elon is sort of moving into the factory. He’s continuing to double down,” Jorgenson said.
According to Jorgenson, Musk doesn’t necessarily look to contemporary business leaders for inspiration, instead drawing comparisons to historical figures.
“It’s sort of the history of military leadership, you know, and the sort of robber baron era. Like, he looks to them as examples, and I feel like that’s why he feels a little bit unique in our era. He leads a company like Napoleon led an army.”
A call to the next generation
Jorgenson said his broader goal in writing the book is to inspire others to take on large-scale problems the way Musk has.
“My mission for this book is to create one million Musks. So I look to the future and I think how incredible the world would be in 30 or 50 years if we had a million people solving the scale of problems that he’s solving. And I think that’s completely doable,” Jorgenson said.
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