Death would come as a relief to me: Elon Musk

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said that he is not afraid of dying and death would actually bring relief to him.

In an interview with Mathias Dopfner, the CEO of German publishing company Axel Springer, Musk said that he would like to maintain health for a longer period of time.

"I think for political leadership, you want to be ideally within 10 or at least, 20 years of the average age of the population. And for me, I certainly would like to maintain health for a longer period of time. But I am not afraid of dying. I think it would come as a relief," he explained.

Musk, however, said that he would like to live long enough to see the vision of SpaceX come true. Readmore!

"My biggest hope is that humanity creates a self-sustaining city on Mars," he added.

Answering the question on if he is happy at the moment, Musk said: "I think there are degrees of love. But certainly, for one to be fully happy, I think you have to be happy at work and happy in love. So, I suppose I'm medium happy.

"I tried to be as literal as possible. I would be happy if humanity has a self-sustaining city on Mars because then, the probable lifespan of humanity is much greater. I think we really just got this little candle of consciousness, like a small light in the void. And we do not want this small candle in the darkness to be put out."

Musk said that we should not try to have people live for a really long time.

"That it would cause asphyxiation of society because the truth is, most people don't change their mind. They just die. So if they don't die, we will be stuck with old ideas and society won't advance. I think we already have quite a serious issue with gerontocracy, where the leaders of so many countries are extremely old."

On the concept of launching global air taxis, he said that the landing of such air-borne vehicles will be loud.

"So you would probably be connecting cities that are next to oceans or seas. So you can land far enough offshore that the landing noise is not disturbing to people. It is like an intercontinental rocket," the Tesla CEO noted.