Elon Musk has been at the center of innovation for the majority of the 21st century, from his early days as co-founder of X.com (which later became PayPal through a merger) to his stewardship of Tesla and SpaceX. As he revealed nearly 15 years ago, his drive stems from another famous quotation that we associate with the science fiction writer Arthur C Clarke.
“If you go back say, 300 years, the things we take for granted today, you’d be burned at stake for. Being able to fly. That’s crazy. Being able to see over long distance, being able to communicate, the Internet as a group mind of sorts, and having access to all the word’s information instantly from anywhere on the earth. This really would be considered magic in times past.”
Technology that we take for granted
A lot has changed in the nearly 15 years since Elon Musk delivered his keynote at the 188th Caltech Commencement ceremony. As the keynote speaker, Musk centered his speech on the ideas that drove him and took him to where he was then.
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Musk’s entire speech, and inspiration for his work, hung on the thoughts of Arthur C Clark, which first appeared in the 1973 book, ‘Profiles of the Future’. In it, he said: “A sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Reflecting on these thoughts, he opined on a series of technologies that we all enjoy that wouldn’t have been conceivable in the not-too-distant past.
The future of magic
In his speech, Music told students: “If I can advance technology, that is like magic and that would be really cool”.
Perhaps his most intriguing venture today is Neuralink – a brain-computer interface (BCI) technology that has made several important strides in recent years. The device, implanted into the brain, helps people with severe paralysis or neurological conditions gain control of digital devices using their thoughts.
As recently as January 2026, one of the first people in the UK to use the ‘brain chip’ at the heart of the project echoed Musk’s 2012 comments by describing the feeling as “magical” adding: “This kind of technology kind of gives you a new piece of hope.”
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