Without a doubt, Elon Musk is the most named and popular man in recent weeks, thanks to his most recent acquisition: Twitter.
In addition, the richest man in the world and owner of Tesla, sold shares of his electric car company worth 4.4 billion dollars shortly following he bought 100% of the social network.
During his debut on Saturday Night Live, the millionaire businessman and now owner of said platform, first mentioned that he had Asperger’s Syndrome. And since the show is comedy, the man joked, “I know I’ve said or posted weird things, but it’s just the way my brain works.”
Specifically, Asperger syndrome (AS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that especially affects communication and social interaction. This disorder is included within the Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), according to the specialized health portal, TopDoctors.
Now, until now, Musk hadn’t really (seriously) explained how his mind works, however, during a recent TED talk, he did confess regarding what it is like to grow up with this syndrome and how it influenced his way of thinking.
The interview was with TED leader Chris Anderson, during which Musk discussed various topics, including his purchase of Twitter, and his life experiencing autism.
“Social cues weren’t intuitive, so I was very adept at books. Others might intuitively understand what something means. I would take it very literally as if the words being spoken were exactly what they meant. But that turned out to be wrong,” explained the businessman.
As mentioned above, Asperger syndrome can lead to this type of “literal” thinking. Sometimes people don’t notice some non-verbal cues or they can even confuse what a person is referring to with a simple phrase.
“People don’t just say what they mean. There are many kinds of other things that they can mean. It took me a while to figure it out,” says Musk.
On the other hand, like many neurodivergent children, Elon Musk was bullied at school, an issue he had previously addressed: “I didn’t have a very happy childhood, to be honest. It was pretty rough. But she read a lot of books. Gradually I understood more social cues from the books she read”, highlights the businessman.
Similarly, that love of books led him to become interested in science and technology, eventually finding refuge in computing.
“I found it compelling to spend all night programming computers on my own. Most people don’t enjoy typing strange symbols on a computer by themselves all night. They think it’s not funny, but I really liked it,” Musk recalls.
In addition to the above, he noted that he even has an obsession with the truth. “It’s one of the reasons I studied physics because it’s regarding understanding the truth of the universe. And then computer science or information theory: There is an argument that information theory operates at a more fundamental level than even psychic ones,” she concluded.
In general, the tycoon points out that having experienced Asperger syndrome, despite having its difficulties, ended up helping his future. Furthermore, this was what led him down the path of science and technology, and with his focused mind he has managed to grow his projects such as Tesla and Space X.