Neil deGrasse Tyson: Elon Musk "Will Transform Civilization As We Know It"

Future Man

It's no secret that Neil deGrasse Tyson is an advocate for space exploration. So it should come to no surprise that he's a big fan of one of spacetech's most public figures.

In an interview with CNBC Make It, Tyson said he thought Elon Musk was going to have a bigger influence on society, in the long run, than other tech personalities like Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg.

Civilization Transformer

Musk "is not simply giving us the next app that will be awesome on our smartphone," like Steve Jobs or other tech CEOs, Tyson said. "No, he is thinking about society, culture, how we interact, what forces need to be in play to take civilization into the next century."

He even went on to say that Musk "will transform civilization as we know it."

Space Exploration

Tyson is far more concerned with how humanity will fare once it's able to leave Earth than the consumer technology sector or social media, with a futurist's eye toward humanity's long-term outlook.

And as an astrophysicist himself, space exploration is close to his heart. Perhaps one day he'll be able to explore it himself aboard a SpaceX capsule.

READ MORE: Neil deGrasse Tyson: Why Elon Musk is more important than Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg [CNBC]

More on Elon Musk's space exploration efforts: Elon Musk Just Changed the BFR’s Name for a Fourth Time