Elon Musk

Books | Biography & Autobiography / Business

2.9

Walter Isaacson

From the author of Steve Jobs and other bestselling biographies, this is the astonishingly intimate story of the most fascinating and controversial innovator of our era—a rule-breaking visionary who helped to lead the world into the era of electric vehicles, private space exploration, and artificial intelligence. Oh, and took over Twitter.Australian Financial Review Top 20 Read for 2023 When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist. His father’s impact on his psyche would linger. He developed into a tough yet vulnerable man-child, prone to abrupt Jekyll-and-Hyde mood swings, with an exceedingly high tolerance for risk, a craving for drama, an epic sense of mission, and a maniacal intensity that was callous and at times destructive. At the beginning of 2022—after a year marked by SpaceX launching thirty-one rockets into orbit, Tesla selling a million cars, and him becoming the richest man on earth—Musk spoke ruefully about his compulsion to stir up dramas. “I need to shift my mindset away from being in crisis mode, which it has been for about fourteen years now, or arguably most of my life,” he said. It was a wistful comment, not a New Year’s resolution. Even as he said it, he was secretly buying up shares of Twitter, the world’s ultimate playground. Over the years, whenever he was in a dark place, his mind went back to being bullied on the playground. Now he had the chance to own the playground. For two years, Isaacson shadowed Musk, attended his meetings, walked his factories with him, and spent hours interviewing him, his family, friends, coworkers, and adversaries. The result is the revealing inside story, filled with amazing tales of triumphs and turmoil, that addresses the question: are the demons that drive Musk also what it takes to drive innovation and progress?

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More Details:

Author

Walter Isaacson

Pages

688

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

2023-09-13

ISBN

1761422626 9781761422621

Community ReviewsSee all

"I am both a huge fan of Isaacson and Musk, so I am biased but this book is a tour de force. The way Isaacson writes is so engaging and easy to read, and Musk is someone who aims to change the world. People like him are once in a generation type and oddly, society today often maligns them. I believe, as Isaacson writes near the very end, that “One can admire a persons good traits and decry the bad ones.” For someone who is extreme at all that he does, you are going to get extreme results, good and bad. We need more inventors, risk takers, and “crazy ones”."

Sheldon Rapoza

"Awesome biography! Very in-depth, personal, and informative. Takes you through Elons childhood days back in South Africa, his relationship with his parents, being bullied through school years, and a difficult relationship with his father. It becomes very apparent that he excels in comparison to other kids and siblings at a very young age. He took an interest in Science, Robotics and began imagining a better world. Loved how it took the reader through such major moments for both Elon and the world as he pushed through process rules and regulations and changed the automotive industry, space, and expedition. Is he eccentric, yes, but so we're many great pioneers of change. It's interesting to see how many have come to recognize his brilliance, and others hate the very thing that drives him. You read about his self diagnosis, moments of uncontrolled anger, outbursts, some fearing him, some ridiculing, and others short stocking. He goes into his marriages,children, SpaceX, and Twitter. Learned a lot about the industry and the disruption Elon inforced that has made history in our time. A slow burn of a read but very interesting, to say the least. A glimpse into how such an innovative mind works. Really enjoyed this!"