When any mention is made of Elon Musk’s name, many things come to mind. These range from his forays into the American political arena to his very impressive and high-end path breaking creations in the realm of technology. What most readers may not be aware of are his radical and productive ideas on education. Musk’s concerns over the last several years have stemmed from his very true observation that education seems to be in a state of suspended animation. I have found his ideas for educational reform very much akin to the spirit that drove our seers of Upanishadic times. They too questioned the existing practices and beliefs of that age, many of which were directly related to education. Of course, lest I be misunderstood, I am not trying to liken him in other ways to the sages who engendered the Upanishads. As much as I can tell, Musk has challenged, interrogated, even dismantled, and then reconstructed the education platform. At the heart of his vision stands a simple, yet profound question: why must education remain the ghost of the industrial age, with its straitjacketed silos? What seems to result from his questions and challenges is the emphasis on the need for minds to be spurred by curiosity and to engage boldly with uncertainty.
During my school going years, one of the most enjoyable and truly engaging experiences that I recall centred around regularly exchanging comic books with my school principal. He even made time for me to discuss the contents of those comic books. My first exposure to interesting history and to many of the great creations of literature happened through those comic books. They most certainly whetted my curiosity about several things. I thus find Musk’s metaphor of materialising education in a manner akin to playing video games as quite similar to my joy of learning through comic books. The school that was set up for Musk’s own children and for some employees of SpaceX did away with the old drudgery of sitting in rows, harking to the bells, and wearily transitioning from mathematics to language and back. Instead, he invites us to see them as singularities, each with a unique path so that the nine-year-old devours calculus and the 12-year-old finds poetry in the algorithm. I cannot help but recall the episode from the Chandogya Upanishad where the great guru Gautam Haridrumat through his precept and example teaches Satyakama in a manner so creatively unique. Satyakama is not asked to memorise and recite the Vedas, instead, he is given a project in wealth management when he is asked to take a few hundred head of cattle into the forest and not return until they have multiplied three fold or so.
Ad Astra—that’s the name of the small private school Musk set up on SpaceX’s campus in Hawthorne, California. It was mainly for his own kids and a handful of SpaceX employees’ children, super experimental with no grades or traditional classes. It ran from around 2014 to 2020. There’s a newer online version called Astra Nova that’s open to more children now. Astra Nova is thriving as an online non-profit school—it has about 315 middle school students from 45 countries, and it’s launching its high school programme this coming school year, 2026-2027. Classes happen in English on a live Zoom platform. Class sizes vary from six to 16 students. It focuses on project-based learning, first principles, and real-world skills—no grades, no traditional tests, just meaningful challenges. Tuition is quite steep but any demonstrated financial need is met in full. The high school shall be launched this August for ages 14 to 18. One of the most remarkable features centres around the assessment processes. They don’t use grades or standardised tests, so there’s no traditional performance data like test scores. Instead, they measure success through curiosity, teamwork, and ethical decision-making.
