When asked about how he built rockets, Elon Musk said: “I read books”! The owner of electric car company Tesla is famous for being intelligent, hard-working, and avid reader. Below are 6 bedside books that shape Elon’s personality and success!

According to Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Tesla CEO Elon Musk added $7.2 billion on November 23, when Tesla shares increased 6.6%. Currently, he owns 127.9 billion USD, slightly higher than 127.7 billion USD of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. Thanks to that, Musk also took the position of the second richest billionaire in the world, only behind Amazon boss Jeff Bezos (182 billion USD).

This year, thanks to soaring Tesla shares, Musk has gained more than $100 billion. This is the strongest increase in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. In January, he was only ranked 35th in the world. Three-quarters of Musk’s assets come from Tesla shares – the electric car company currently has a capitalization of nearly 500 billion USD. His shares in Tesla are four times more valuable than his shares in the aerospace company SpaceX, which he also founded.

Creating Elon Musk’s breakthrough and different thinking is thanks to many factors, including the habit of reading and learning from a young age. Musk’s mother, previously, in an interview with INC, said that Musk liked reading books since he was a child. If she took Musk to a date, and the date wasn’t interesting, Musk would duck down near the table with a book.

In Elon Musk’s bookshelf, there are 6 books that have shaped Musk’s personality and created his success today. Most of those books are science fiction novels.

‘The Lord of the Rings’ – (Temporarily translated: The Lord of the Rings) by JRR Tolkien

During his childhood, while living in South Africa, Musk was nicknamed Muskrat. In an interview with The New Yorker, Musk said he overcame his loneliness by reading science fiction and fantasy novels. The Ring” by JRR Tolkien – shaped my vision for the future. I always feel that the heroes in this book have a mission to save the world,” Musk said.

‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ – by Douglas Adams

Elon Musk had an “existential crisis” when he was 12-15 years old. At this time, Musk delved into Friedrich Nietzsche, Arthur Schopenhauer and other philosophers to find the meaning of life.

However, they did not help Musk until Musk encountered “The Road to the Milky Way” by Douglas Adams. From this book, he helped Musk answer exactly the questions he needed.

“Benjamin Franklin: An American Life” by Walter Isaacson

In an interview, Musk said that Ben Franklin was one of his heroes. In Franklin’s biography, “you can see that Franklin was a businessman who started from nothing, he was just a kid on the run.”

After reading Franklin’s biography, Musk realized that he had gone through similar things to Benjamin, growing up in Pretoria, South Africa, going to school in Canada, transferring to the University of Pennsylvania, then using the invitation to join. PhD program from Stanford University to Silicon Valley.

“Biography of Einstein: Life and Universe” by Walter Isaacso

In an interview with Foundation, Musk said he learned a lot from Einstein’s biography.

Like Franklin, this book tells the story of a genius who transformed the world with his intelligence and ambition.

“Structures: Or Why Things Don’t Fall Down” của J.E. Gordon

Musk is a proactive, self-taught person and often “devours” what he thinks he needs to know. When he decided to start SpaceX, Musk knew he needed to learn the basics of rocket science.

One of the books that supported Musk during this time was “Structures: Or Why Things Don’t Fall Down,” a work on structure by JE Gordon, a British materials scientist.

“Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants” của John D. Clark

“’Ignition!’ by John Clark is a good book about rockets,” Musk said in an interview.

This book is the right blend of technical details, descriptions of experiments with spectacular results, and basic information about the whys and hows of rocket science.

Clark was an American chemist active in rocket fuel development in the 1960s and 1970s, and ‘Ignition!’ is part of the growth in this field.

The book, first published in 1966, was awarded the most attractive science fiction novel, depicting a picture of the future prediction of the universe.

This is also the favorite genre of books and is suitable for Elon Musk’s imagination.