() Technology entrepreneur and academic Vivek Wadhwa, who has known Elon Musk for 15 years, thought the tech billionaire perhaps had one too many drinks in 2012 when he shared his plans to retire on Mars.

“We were talking about Star Trek. He says ‘I’m gonna go to Mars,'” Wadhwa said during an appearance on ” Prime.” “He went on about how he plans to retire on Mars. I thought he was kidding with me. Later on, I realized he was dead serious. Elon doesn’t just dream, he makes things happen.”

Wadhwa believes the tech billionaire is the “greatest innovator in modern times,” comparing him to Leonardo da Vinci, Beethoven, Nikola Tesla and Steve Jobs.

“We’ve read about them but couldn’t imagine meeting them. That’s Elon Musk,” Wadhwa said. “If they had Twitter, we’d have seen their faults their good, bad, dark sides, and weirdness. That’s how geniuses are. That’s how Elon Musk is.” 

“He’s good and bad at the same time. Brilliant and dumb at the same time. He’s Elon Musk and he’s doing amazing things for humanity…”

Musk has made billions of dollars founding or investing in forward-thinking companies like Tesla, SpaceX, and Neuralink. Musk credits his love of science fiction for pushing him to think creatively and be a bit of a disruptor when it comes to the status quo.

He elevated himself to the world’s richest man with a net worth of just more than $400 billion, according to Forbes, after successful business forays with Tesla, SpaceX and other endeavors built around his love of technology.

“I was definitely inspired by science fiction with books and movies,” Musk said during a panel discussion on advancing technology in 2012. “It creates this sense of possibility that you want to make real. Making it real is a very difficult process but over time, we’ve been able to do that.”

Musk’s Mars Colonization Goals

He said in 2012 he saw developing interplanetary space travel and landing someone on Mars as the ultimate adventure that the human race could achieve.

“We need a spaceship that can do interplanetary travel,” Musk said. “It’s about time.”

SpaceX developed the Starship spacecraft, which the company describes as a fully reusable transportation system that is designed to carry crew and cargo to orbit the Earth, Mars and beyond. The rocket’s heat shield is designed to withstand several entries to Mars.

In addition to living out the adventure of establishing a sustainable interplanetary life system on Mars, Musk wrote on the SpaceX website that spacefaring civilization is “about believing in the future and thinking that the future will be better than the past.”

“I think people should generally have more of a positive attitude because that’s the underlying reality,” Musk said in 2012. “I think in the 21st century, we’ll see lots of exciting things happen. I think we’ll see the transformation and transportation and energy production. We’ll hopefully see a base on Mars and if SpaceX can help us make that transformation happen, I think it will enable enormous possibilities for who is able to go over there and create things on another planet.”