The song that inspired Elon Musk to fly to the moon
Elon Musk is one of the world’s richest individuals. While he owns a selection of the most well-known businesses, such as Tesla and Twitter, his music taste is less impressive than the number of zeroes sitting in his bank account.
In 2011, before becoming one of the most famous people on the planet, Musk appeared as a guest on Raul Campos’ show on the local community radio station KCRW in Los Angeles. The entrepreneur was asked to name his five favourite tracks, and because the show was broadcast around Christmas time, he chose one festive song.
As the owner of Space X, Musk chose Frank Sinatra’s ‘Fly Me To The Moon’ as his first track and explained how the song inspired him to one day visit the moon. He said of his song selection: “I like the sense of possibility and it’s really inspiring. And I’d really like to fly to the moon. You know, obviously I own a space company, I’m going to tend to like something that involves flying to the moon. You hear this song and it sounds like it’s really going to happen.”
Over a decade later since Musk stated his intent to travel to the moon, he’s still yet to complete this task, but has not given up hope of travelling to a new planet and now has his eyes set on Mars. He told Time Magazine in 2021 that he’d be “surprised if we’re not landing on Mars within five years”.
Musk added: “The next really big thing is to build a self-sustaining city on Mars and bring the animals and creatures of Earth there.”
Musk’s other selections included ‘America, F*ck Yeah!’ from the Team America film, which says a considerable amount about his relationship with music. He commented: “That is from the movie, Team America. I’m a big fan of South Park. The shows that I watch – South Park, Daily Show and Colbert Report – those are sort of my main three ones – they just capture a little bit of essence of America in both a good and a bad way.” Musk also chose another comedic song, ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ by Monty Python.
Sticking with the Christmas theme of the broadcast, Musk named ‘Santa Claus Is Coming to Town’ by Fred Astaire. His eclectic list was completed by ‘Con Te Partiro’ by Andrea Bocelli, which he declared as “a reminder that the world is a beautiful place”.
Listen below to ‘Fly Me To The Moon’.
