Elon Musk
by
3/99
Critics' Rating Index
94/99
Readers' Rating Index
97/99
Scholars' Citation Index
97/99
Volume of Reviews
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About This Book
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. 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 are the demons that drive Musk also what it takes to drive innovation and progress?
Reviews
"He frames it as a character study, a quest to understand and perhaps reconcile the contradictions at Musk's core."
"The details of...domestic intrigues are, in the book and in Musk's life, largely beside the point."
"Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator."
"It's a familiar descriptor for Musk's fans and detractors, but Isaacson's biography still offers plenty of revealing details about the tech mogul ..."
"Isaacson divides Musk into two men: the cruel boss who, in his increasingly conspiratorial public statements and appalling treatment of women, resembles Errol; and the other Musk, a visionary genius ..."
"An engaging chronicle ..."
"Far more interesting than the portrait Elon Musk offers of its subject is the detectable outline of its intended reader."
"I started Elon Musk wondering if the world needed another book positioning Musk as a great man...and finished thinking it's time to retire the entire genre of 'great innovator' biographies, period."
"I found myself wanting a deeper examination of the ramifications of Musk's controversial position in the privatisation of space ..."
"Reading the book is like hearing what Musk's many accomplishments and scandals would sound like from the perspective of his therapist, if he ever sought one out ..."
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