These 3 science fiction stories inspired Elon Musk and explain his business choices — but critics say he's missing the point

• Elon Musk says he draws inspiration from Isaac Asimov's and Douglas Adams' works.
• These stories' focus on great men and amazing technology defying the rules could explain his business choices.

Elon Musk is one of the most divisive tech and business personas of our time, and there is much chatter about what shapes his beliefs and business choices.

Musk's influences have varied wildly from Napoleon to his youth spent in South Africa, to "effective altruism" philosopher William MacAskill, according to his own comments and per his biographer, Walter Isaacson.

Beyond these, however, a consistent source of influence from his childhood to today is his self-professed love of science fiction.

The New Yorker's profile of Musk, published Monday, even referred to three sci-fi stories that Musk has consistently listed as his inspiration.

These tales and their focus on great men using wonderful technology to beat the odds could partially explain what drives Musk's decision-making. But some critics say that he's also missing the point of these stories.

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" seems to have influenced Musk's xAI

Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide" is a highly satirical comedy science fiction novel that follows Earth's last man after the planet is demolished to build a galactic highway.

Musk previously said that the story "highlighted an important point, which is that a lot of times the question is harder than the answer."

The Hitchhiker's Guide's super-computer that can provide the answer to "life, the universe, and everything" has seemingly inspired the mission of Musk's new company, xAI, to "understand the true nature of the universe."

Musk even suggested the company's launch date — which adds up to 42 — was a reference to Adams' answer to life and everything.

However, Harvard historian Jill Lepore was critical of Musk misinterpreting the book in a 2022 interview on The Next Big Idea. "Douglas Adams is saying, 'We shouldn't send wealthy colonists to other planets to build luxury colonies because that is wrong,' and writing a satire that displays the many ways in which that is wrong," said Lepore.

"That is Musk's guide for living, yet he is using that guide to justify doing the very thing that the story is opposed to," she added.

"Foundation" could explain Musk's urgency with space travel

SpaceX CEO Musk previously said in a 2013 interview with the Guardian that the company's mission to Mars was influenced by Isaac Asimov's "Foundation." Musk said his takeaway from the series was that "civilizations move in cycles."

"Given that this is the first time in 4.5 billion years where it's been possible for humanity to extend life beyond Earth, it seems like we'd be wise to act while the window was open and not count on the fact it will be open a long time," Musk said.

Asimov's book series depicts a galactic empire on the verge of a long decline until mathematician Hari Seldon uses a novel theory of "psychohistory" to predict that the empire's decline could be sharply reduced from 10,000 years of chaos and violence to 1,000 years of relatively peaceful decline.

It is easy to see how the book might have shaped Musk's preoccupation with threats to human civilization.

However, Jonny Diamond, the editor-in-chief of the literary review site Literary Hub, hit out at Musk's takeaways from the novel. He wrote in an op-ed that Musk was spending so much of his wealth on "trying to get a few people into space" instead of solutions for an increasingly inhospitable Earth.

Elon Musk loves "Deus Ex" and its cyberpunk style

Elon Musk appears to be a huge fan of the 2000 science fiction video game, "Deus Ex." It features prominently in his past tweets, and he even sleeps next to a replica gun from the game.

He even referred to the game while discussing his brain-microchip company, Neuralink, tweeting that the tool "could also extend range of hearing beyond normal frequencies and amplitudes. Deus Ex."

His tweets about the game — which features protagonist JC Denton fighting real-world conspiracy theories, corrupt organizations, and secretive government agencies — appeared to liken a virus manufactured by a secretive "Illuminati" to seize power over people featured in the game to the coronavirus.

However, fans of "Deus Ex" have mocked him for his selective reading of the plot.

And though Musk appeared to compare himself to the game's protagonist, fans — and even one writer of the game — poked fun at how he seems more akin to the game's villainous billionaire entrepreneur who engineered the in-game virus.

Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider, sent outside regular business hours.