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Elon Musk's Hobby Journey
b. 1971
CEO of Tesla and SpaceX; pushing boundaries of electric vehicles, space exploration, and AIHobby Timeline
Childhood (South Africa)
Voracious readingScience fictionSelf-taught programmingMaking rocketsMagic tricks
Teens / Early Career
Obsessive reading (sci-fi, philosophy, biographies)Video game development
Peak Career
Competitive video gamingAnimeReading (biographies, physics, AI research)
Surprising hobbies
- ✦Reportedly ranked top 20 globally in Diablo IV
- ✦Childhood explosives experiments (pool chlorine + brake fluid)
- ✦Hypnotized his sister into believing she was a dog as a child
- ✦Taught himself magic tricks
How hobbies shaped their career
The sci-fi books — especially Asimov's Foundation and Hitchhiker's Guide — directly shaped his vision for SpaceX and Mars colonization. His childhood coding hobby became the foundation for his tech career. His reading habit, which he maintains to this day, is how he taught himself rocket science, famously reading engineering textbooks cover to cover to build SpaceX.
"I was raised by books. Books, and then my parents."
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