Isaacson’s biography of Musk is very similar to that of Steve Jobs. It’s complete with stark typography and its subject looking appropriately thoughtful. I’m sure Musk is happier with this.
Along with his infamous Aspergers tendencies, it’s rumoured Musk has a planet-sized ego to go along with his aspirations in space travel, electric vehicles and online technologies.
With access to Musk himself – Isaacson shadowed him for several years – as well as almost everyone else in his business and personal lives, the author paints a picture that is pretty much a warts and all. Few in society have Musk’s ambitions to dream big and put the enormous resources behind such grand ambitions like SpaceX, with its ultimate aim to provide affordable human emigration to Mars in order to preserve the human race.
The book highlights plenty of Musk’s personal demons, including his upbringing, to the way he treats people in his work and life.
If you think you know Musk from media coverage, there are still plenty of tidbits that put his sometimes erratic behaviour in context. His purchase of Twitter, for instance. Isaacson talks about Musk’s longstanding desire to make a single unfettered ecommerce/social media platform, even down to the seemingly ill-advised rebranding as ‘X’.
Elon Musk is a huge tome, but I found myself breezing through it. It’s as much a testament to Isaacson’s talent with digestible turns of phrase as any interest you have in Musk himself.
Reviewed by Drew Turney
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Walter Isaacson is the bestselling author of biographies of Jennifer Doudna, Leonardo da Vinci, Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, and Albert Einstein. He is a professor of history at Tulane and was CEO of the Aspen Institute, chair of CNN, and editor of Time. He was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2023.
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