Walter Isaacson is one of the greatest living biographers. He has written biographies of Henry Kissinger, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, Leonardo Da Vinci, Jennifer Doudna and now Elon Musk.
The previous biography written about Musk with his cooperation was with Ashlee Vance in 2015. It is probably the book that I have reread the most. Also one of the few books that I have bought the physical copy of. I love ebooks and audiobooks and pdfs (Thanks Russians).
Walter Isaacson shadowed Musk for two years while writing this book from 2021 to 2023. This was the period of time when Musk ascended to become the richest man in the world after Tesla stock rocketed and he sold a million cars, launched thirty-one rockets into orbit and more. Then he decided to put all his chips back onto the table and decided to buy Twitter.
Isaacson connects this buying of Twitter to his childhood trauma of getting bullied in the playgrounds of South Africa saying that Elon now gets to own the playground. Beautiful wordplay I must admit but how true is that really?
He also connects his chaotic and lunatic relationships with Justine Musk, Talulah Riley, Amber Heard and Claire Boucher (Grimes) to his relationship with his father Errol Musk (who is a horrible and evil person). His ‘demon mode’ where he becomes even more less empathetic than he usually is and uses it to get things done by shouting at people or firing people and making abrupt chaotic decisions is also connected to his childhood trauma that he got from Errol.
While the Vance biography explored these ideas through the founding of his various companies, Isaacson made these connections more obvious and simple to understand. Also Vance wrote back in 2015 that Elon’s goals would eventually lead him to become the richest man on earth which seemed impossible back in 2015 but eventually came to fruition in 2021.
Also the saying that money exemplifies a person’s qualities is so true when you compare these two biographies. Elon was worth about $10b in 2015 and $340b in late 2021. He is even more of a douchebag and asshole to everyone around him even those he ‘loves’ but at the same time he is furthering innovation and progress at an unprecedented level especially when it comes to SpaceX and Tesla.
“Building mass market electric cars was inevitable,” he said. “It would have happened without me. But becoming a space-faring civilization is not inevitable.” Fifty years earlier, America had sent men to the moon. But since then, there had been no progress. Just the reverse. The Space Shuttle could only do low-Earth orbit, and after it was retired, America couldn’t even do that anymore. “Technology does not automatically progress,” Musk said. “This flight was a great example of how progress requires human agency
In conclusion Elon is net good for humanity.
They also address his recent political motivations that have made him rather unpopular especially in America. He decided to go right wing because he tends to act in ways that resemble his father (who he hates and despises extremely strongly due to childhood abuse and trauma). You know “you have become the very thing you swore to destroy” type of thing.
One of his children developed a deep hatred for capitalism and wealth which led Elon to sell all his possessions. So Elon became a father who is hated by at least one child. His reasoning for this was the private LA school that indoctrinated the kid. So that’s why he’s anti woke.
He’s also wired differently. After his parent’s divorce, he joined his father for a while even though he had no custody just because he thought his father was lonely. Although he would later regret this, it gave him access to physics and science fiction books that he would have otherwise not read.
Also Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is Elon’s Bible. He lives by it and so much of his actions can be explained by ideas in this book. This is poignant when you realise that xAI (his new AI company) is solving what question to ask instead of finding out what the answer is to the meaning of life.
The latter half of the book was stuff that I was already familiar with but there were interesting tidbits. Like the fact that Elon was indecisive about buying Twitter and would switch between wanting to buy Twitter and not wanting to buy it. He would ultimately be forced to buy.
Main lessons were the Five Step Design Process, the way he makes every decision through the lens of whether it will bring him closer to making humans a multi-planetary species and the fact that he believes he is only limited by the laws of physics.
As a follower of Musk antics, it was interesting to note what got cut from this book. It shows a small peak into how history is written and how people are portrayed.