Elon Musk says his mind is a 'storm’—and he calms it by playing video games, his ‘primary recreational activity'

(Credit: Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

Anyone who runs a company needs a way to de-stress. For some CEOs that might mean golf or sailing. For Elon Musk, who runs or owns Tesla, SpaceX, and X (formerly Twitter), the main method is playing video games.

“It calms my mind. Killing the demons in a video game calms the demons in my mind,” Musk told podcaster Lex Fridman in an episode released Friday. He added later, “I’ve played a lot of video games because it's my primary recreational activity.”