Elon Musk Admits He Contemplated Suicide at Age 12 After Battling 'Demons of the Mind'

Elon Musk is getting honest about a dark period in his childhood.

During the tech guru's Wednesday, November 29, interview with Aaron Ross Sorkin at the DealBook Summit 2023, Musk admitted he contemplated suicide at a very young age after suffering an existential crisis.

"It is all pointless? Why not just commit suicide? Why exist?" he admitted of his thoughts at the time, noting he had been reading German philosophy books that made him “quite depressed."

However, after he began reading Douglas Adams’ book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, he changed his mind. "My motivation then was, well, my life is really finite … but if we can expand the scope and scale of consciousness then we are better able to figure out what questions to ask about the answer that is the universe and maybe we can find out what is the meaning of life," he said.

The businessman told the journalist his brain "often feels like a very wild storm” due to the “fountain of ideas” running through his mind.

When Sorkin asked Musk if the "storm" was ever a "happy storm," the 52-year-old bluntly stated, "No."

"I think to some degree I was born this way, but it was amplified by a difficult childhood, frankly," he clarified of his upbringing.

Musk — who previously admitted to being bullied in his adolescence — noted that even when he was experiencing happiness as a child, he felt "a rage of forces in [his] mind constantly."

"These demons of the mind are, for the most part, harnessed to productive ends," the mogul added. "Once in a while, they, you know, go wrong."

Never miss a story — sign up for the OK! newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what OK! has to offer. It’s gossip too good to wait for!

In Walter Isaacson's recent biography on the star, the author discussed Musk's ups and downs, explaining he suffered from "demon-like" mood swings and exhibited "many personalities."

"He'll go from being very giddy or being in engineering mode where he can figure out the valve of a raptor engine and suddenly the clouds come," Isaacson shared in an interview. "And the amazing thing is, after he’s gone dark and been demon-like and really tough on people, he’ll snap out of it."

"And then I’ll ask him, 'What was that all about?' And he hardly remembers it," he added. "So when you ask about what’s it like dealing with the Elon Musk, I say there are many Elon Musks in this book."