Elon Musk is once again thinking far beyond the earthly realm, this time with a grand plan to preserve the knowledge of civilization among the stars. SpaceX and XAI chief have announced that GrowWikipedia, their AI-built rival to Wikipedia, is just a placeholder name. A rebrand is coming, he says, and not just any rebrand but a rebrand borrowed straight from the classic science-fiction canon. Musk revealed on X that once the platform is improved, which he admits may take some time, it will adopt the name Encyclopedia Galactica. And yes, it is exactly what it sounds like, a futuristic collection that includes everything humanity knows.

As Musk said, “When GroCypedia is good enough (there’s still a long way to go), we’ll rename it Encyclopedia Galactica.” If this sounds familiar, that’s because it is. The term comes from Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, where the Encyclopedia Galactica serves as an emergency repository of human knowledge during the collapse of a galactic empire.

What is Encyclopedia Galactica?

Grokpedia aka Encyclopedia Galactica, launched in October 2025, was introduced as an AI-generated online encyclopedia built using XAI’s in-house model, Grok. Musk pitched it as a neutral alternative to Wikipedia, claiming it would provide readers with “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” The site already boasts hundreds of thousands of listings, many of which are written or refined by chatbots.

But Musk has bigger plans than just a website. In his post he announced an interplanetary twist. Grow Wikipedia won’t just sit on a server, he said; It will support humanity in its space travel ambitions. He even teased that copies would be carved out of durable material and sent to the Moon, Mars, and beyond, a kind of cosmic insurance policy for future civilizations or, perhaps more realistically, any archaeologist who owns a good spacesuit.

“This time, it will not be destroyed,” Musk declared, framing the project as a sci-fi spin on the preservation of the Library of Alexandria, a library that famously did not survive into antiquity. Musk clearly intends to avoid a sequel.

Asimov’s influence and Musk’s mission

The shadow of Asimov looms over the announcement. Written by one of the most influential science fiction thinkers of the 20th century, the Foundation series imagined a galaxy-spanning empire on the brink of collapse and an encyclopedia Galactica created to preserve knowledge through chaos. Musk, who is no stranger to borrowing from science fiction – see Starship, Tesla’s robot Optimus and the Cybertruck’s Blade Runner aesthetic, appears to be blending Asimov’s vision with his own Mars-or-bust philosophy.

In fact, he explicitly linked the project to his long-term mission of making humanity multiplanetary. Encyclopedia Galactica, according to him, is less a gimmick and more a collaborative project for human expansion beyond Earth. As if rockets to Mars weren’t ambitious enough, he now wants to send a universal database along for the ride.

Of course, the details are vague. Musk hasn’t explained what technologies will be used to preserve data, how updates to planets will be handled, or whether the Galactic Edition will come with its own dark mode. But in typical Musk fashion, the concept is grand enough to capture the imagination before engineering even begins.

For XAI, the rebrand also serves as a marketing boost. While Grokpedia was launched as a challenger to Wikipedia, its transformation into Encyclopedia Galactica may give it a narrative edge, less a rival reference site, more a civilization-level project.

Whether humanity will ever need space-bound data backups is a matter of debate. But with Musk involved, it seems increasingly likely that one day, hidden somewhere in the lunar regolith, future explorers might dig up a stone slab that might reveal what the memes were.