Elon Musk's Fears of Longevity (& What It Means for the Future)

Elon Musk has been named Time Magazine’s person of the year for 2021. Musk is always looking ahead, and has big plans for the future - both for himself, and more importantly, for humanity. But does Musk want to live to realize that long term vision for humanity’s future? The answer is possibly “No.”

Musk raised some eyebrows recently when discussing the idea of increasing human lifespans. The exchange in question took place at the Wall Street Journal's CEO Council Summit during a virtual interview between Musk and Joanna Stern.

This is not the first time that Musk has addressed longevity and life extension science, and it does seem like his views on the subject are slowly evolving. In 2013 Musk seemed to say that he doesn’t think that extreme life extension is even possible through means such as diet, exercise, or even curing diseases, given what he sees as limits of biology that cannot be overcome in this way. However, he sees potential to bypass those biological limits with gene editing technology, though he understands that this is a controversial topic and many will oppose this type of work. He expressed a similar sentiment during a 2015 conversation with Tim Urbran of Wait But Why.

During a Vanity Fair event with journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin, Musk revealed how long he’d like to live: about 100 years. In 2021, during the Everyday Astronaut tour of Starbase, Musk, who is known for optimistic timelines, seemed to suggest that he didn’t see himself living much beyond a typical human lifespan of today. So Musk perhaps hopes to die around age 100, which would be the year 2071.

Musk believes that using gene editing, it would not be particularly difficult to stop and even reverse aging. He must foresee some possibility that these age reversal technologies are developed while he’s still alive, but he’s already made clear that he doesn’t want to live forever and isn’t really interested in longevity. So what happens when these technologies are developed? Does Elon Musk not make use of them, and instead choose to age and die?

Musk has a fear that more people living longer could stifle innovation and stagnate our culture, but even if it is the case that a 90 year old of today is more stuck in their ways than a 30 year old, who is to say that rejuvenating the body and brain of that 90 year old back to the body and brain of a 30 year old wouldn’t also give them the neuroplasticity and mental outlook of a biologically younger person? After all - at this point they are that biologically younger person. I think this is quite possible, and I find it hard to accept that someone who believes we can turn a human into a butterfly struggles to also see that it’s possible to make it so that chronological age doesn’t affect the human brain in the way that he fears it will.

I don’t expect Musk to get deeply involved with the longevity movement. I also expect him to not be a barrier to it, and I’d love for him to financially support the development of this technology.

As Elon Musk approaches age 100, he might be far less interested in dying than he seems to be today.

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Musk on Longevity:

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Host, Producer, & Editor - Ryan O’Shea
Art - Mattijs Vonk, Tim Maupin
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#ElonMusk #Longevity #Immortality #SpaceX #Neuralink

[LongevityScienceNews]

What do you think? Will Elon Musk eventually take longevity seriously? Is he right to be concerned about this?

[BrentNally]

Bravo Ryan and the rest of the Lifespan News team!

[RyanOShea]

Ah I just realized that I forgot to button one of the buttons on my shirt. Just ignore that, thanks.

[Health.First.]

Elon will come around to longevity eventually

[Alessandr]

Dont worry... he's gonna change his mind.

[neilchristensen]

This was a really interesting deep dive into Musk’s thoughts on longevity. I am a big fan of Elon and I agree with your many points here. I hope he does change his mind someday because he is a valuable member of society and I would love to meet him someday.

[KeepOnThinking]

Space exploration, brain-machine interfaces, AI/robotics, and energy are among the most important areas of development. He's doing so much.

[msbmsbus]

I agree. As people age, they typically think more about and become more fearful of dying. It is easy to say your not afraid to die until you are faced with the stark reality that you are going to cease to exist. It is difficult to imagine that anyone would choose to die, were there a way to remain alive and healthy. Even if for no other reason than to stay with his family, I think Elon will embrace immortality in the future.

[askingwhy]

I had a similar conversation with my grandmother years ago as she approached age 90. She was aghast at the idea of living another 30 years!

Despite generally good health, she suffered from all of the normal frailties and indignities of aging. But when I pressed her about her attitude toward several more decades if she had her body at age 40-50 back, she was brought up short and quickly changed her tune. I see this happening a lot.

[viracocha]

Musk: "we should merge with AI"
Also Musk: "we shouldn't live forever bc old people don't change their mind"

[thankyousir]

This channel is great. Lots of information presented every episode.

[osgaming]

He is not against it, as he would have said so, but give it a couple more years and perhaps he will join this fight against aging, who knows.

[Acemanveryspecial]

People don't change their minds BECAUSE they're going to die.

''No point in fixing what has worked for me, and I'll be dead soon, so who cares.''

Open up the door to living indefinitely or for a very long time and it would expand your mind into a state of forward thinking.

[julioalexo]

Just coming to support the existence of this channel 🙌 ✨

[samuelyuri]

How can someone fear more life when death is what really bothers?
I would be surely thankfull for an Elixir to me and my beloved ones right now.

[frankiestein]

Elon Musk does take it seriously but being involved in so many other projects and not to put investors or people involved with him on his other ventures off. He doesn't want to sound like hes living in some Sci Fi fantasy till more scientific progess happens on longevity front and then he will be more public being behind it.More advancements are close then watch how he will speak more about it I believe

[creightonfreeman]

Elon is a better physicist and engineer than biologist. Aging is more of an epigenetic problem than a genetic problem. The DNA sequence is still fine in an old animal. This is demonstrable, because you can take an old animal and clone a young one from its DNA with none of the health problems associated with old age. So it is the cellular machinery associated with gene expression and silencing that appear to cause the problems of aging, not the DNA itself. There may be other mechanisms at work too, but this is a major one. It may be possible to correct epigenetic dis-regulation with gene therapy, but it is not possible to "overwrite" major portions of DNA in an adult organism, not and have it live.

[orhanmekic]

He is right that new generations bring new perspectives, but longevity would probably change that. Accepting longevity would probably change how we view life itself and that in it self would probably force us to be more open about everything.

[anderswallin]

I think that ge will change his mind before he turns 100. Because i think that he is the type of guy that wants to be there when space travel gets more advanced and we can visit other systems

[Hshjshshjsj]

you're a great host, very professional, and I like how you are very empathetic with the people you're talking about