Elon Musk's surprising response after being asked why he's still working with $500,000,000,000 net worth

When you’ve got a net worth reaching a jaw-dropping half a trillion dollars, you’d think kicking back on a private island might be the next logical step.

But when Elon Musk was asked why he’s still working despite being worth $500 billion, his response was anything but what you’d expect.

While appearing as a guest on the Tesla Beat podcast, Musk was asked why he continues to work, and why he's so into politics and for humanity to become a multi-planetary species - and he gave a surprisingly raw answer.

“I mean, I think it's a good question you asked because it goes to, like - at a foundational level, what is my philosophy? And why does it lead to this conclusion?” Musk began.

He went on to reveal that his drive stems from an 'existential crisis' he had as a teenager, when he couldn’t find convincing answers to what the meaning of life is in religious texts or philosophical works.

Elon Musk was quizzed on why he continues to work despite being worth 12 figures (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Eventually, the SpaceX founder said reading a comedy sci-fi novel changed everything for him.

He explained: “Then I read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and basically what Douglas Adams was saying is that we don't really know what the right questions are to ask. Like, the question is not, ‘what's the meaning of life?’”

For Musk, the big takeaway was that 'the universe is the answer', and that mankind needs to discover what is the question, or questions, that we need to be asking.

What the Tesla CEO took from that is that for humanity to inquire into life beyond our planet, it needs to expand outside of it.

“The more we can expand the scope and scale of consciousness, the better we can understand what questions to ask about the answer that is the universe,” he said.

The founder of SpaceX, Musk, shared his philosophy behind why he continues to work (Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

"The more we can expand consciousness, become a multi-planet species, ultimately a multi-stellar species, we have a chance of figuring out what the hell's going on.

"This is why I think we should have more humans and more digital - both biological and digital - consciousness, and why we should become a multi-planet species and a multi-stellar species is so that we can understand the nature of the universe."

So, despite the stratospheric scale of his wealth, an early retirement doesn't seem to be on the cards for Musk any time soon.

At least, not unless we've populated several planets.