‘I don’t need to be rich’

• Walter Isaacson said Elon Musk plans to spend less time on Twitter to focus on AI and SpaceX.
• Biographers said Musk was concerned about developments in AI that would destroy human civilization.
• Musk is involved in six companies and sometimes sleeps at Twitter’s headquarters.

Elon Musk plans to spend less time trying to make Twitter profitable in favor of focusing on AI concerns and colonizing Mars, according to an excerpt from Walter Isaacson’s upcoming biography of the billionaire published in TIME.

The author, who has been shadowing Musk for about three years, said the Tesla CEO measured the value of focusing his energies on Twitter while the popularity of OpenAI’s ChatGPT grew — raising his concerns about AI.

“With AI coming, I wonder if it’s worth spending so much time thinking about Twitter,” Isaacson said, referring to Musk’s biographer, Musk, and the director of Neuralink, who gave birth to his two sons, told him in March. Children

“Sure, I could probably make it the biggest financial institution in the world. But I only have so many brain cycles and hours in the day. I mean, I don’t need to be richer or something,” Musk told Isaacson, adding that Twitter — now known as X — has several Referring to its plans to turn it into a WeChat-like app with features.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Musk is the richest person in the world with a net worth of $231 billion. His Tesla compensation package is valued at $55 billion. What’s more, the billionaire has previously said he wants to dedicate his wealth to his mission to colonize Mars through his work at SpaceX.

But over the years, Musk’s attention has been divided between several companies, and the Tesla CEO says he sometimes works 120-hour weeks.

After he bought Twitter in October, Musk slept at the company’s headquarters. At the time, some Tesla investors expressed concern about Musk’s involvement with the social media company, calling it “distracting” and calling the Tesla CEO “overcommitted.” Musk eventually stepped down as Twitter CEO when former NBCUniversal ad boss Linda Yaccarino took over in June, though he remains heavily involved in day-to-day decisions at X, Insider’s Kali Hayes previously reported.

At the March meeting, Isaacson said the billionaire told him that developments in AI made his goal of colonizing Mars even more important — “considering the window of opportunity to create a sustainable human colony on Mars before the AI ​​apocalypse wipes out civilization on Earth.”

“He spoke in a low monotone punctuated by an almost manic laugh,” Isaacson wrote. “The rate of human intelligence, he noted, is that because people aren’t having enough children, the rate of computational intelligence is increasing exponentially, like Moore’s Law on steroids. At some point, biological brain power will run out. Digital brain power.”

Musk has expressed similar concerns in the past. Earlier this year, Musk warned that AI is a “threat to the public,” signed an open letter calling for a pause in AI development (while quietly developing his own generative AI efforts, Insider’s Kali Hayes first reported ) and acted on it. To make Twitter data less accessible for training AI models.

Isaacson said that at the March meeting, Musk first discussed his plans to create an AI company. The billionaire later unveiled plans for a company called x.AI in July, saying its mission was to “understand the true nature of the universe.” The biographer said Musk told him he wanted to run the company himself.

It is one of six companies that Musk is helping to lead, including Tesla, SpaceX and X.

Spokespeople for Musk and X did not respond to requests for comment ahead of publication.

Read the full article on TIME’s website.