Elon Musk

By: Walter Isaacson

Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb, Walter Isaacson

Length: 20 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

#1 New York Times bestseller

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 question: are the demons that drive Musk also what it takes to drive innovation and progress?

©2023 Walter Isaacson (P)2023 Simon & Schuster Audio

A Complex Man

Very thorough and well written. I understand him better and my admiration has grown but I still don’t actually like him. Being CEO of so many cutting-edge companies is maybe too much for one person. I will watch with interest to see what he does next.

Reads like an adventure movie

Great reader of a great story. My only criticism is that the author, like his subject, spends too much time on Twitter. Still a great listen

A man on a mission for humanity, not humans

An incredible window into an extraordinarily flawed human being. It is clear that Elon keeps his eyes to the sky and will stop at nothing to get there.

One on hand, I admire his transparency in this biography as yet another open source philosophy to inspire other entrepreneurs and dreamers to tackle Earth’s hardest problems.

On the other hand, Elon is undeniably tortured by his dad and fear of being alone. He executes not by thoughtful strategy, but by ice in his veins taking risks and sheer willpower with no regard for emotions.

Interesting Public Figure

Preface this with I’ve always liked Musk. He’s a blue collar worker’s billionaire, which is to say, everyday people like Musk. The story is mostly favorable, which causes it to come off like Musk had commissioned Isaacson to write it. That being said, Isaacson can’t help but let his political positions when documenting Musk’s occasional interaction with political matters. At these junctures, Isaacson goes into limousine liberal autopilot and portrays Musk as a conspiracy theorist, instead of the libertarian that he is.
As a result, the unavoidable failure is Isaacson’s inability to check his political ideology at the door. This is the single greatest criticism of this biography.
Otherwise I have thoroughly enjoyed this piece.

Deep insightful storytelling into the life of a complex character

I’ve read four books related to Elon, and this one from Walter Isaacson by far gave me the deepest view into who he is as a person, how he got that way and the tumultuous life he leads. 👍👍 It’s easy for outsiders to judge and criticize his actions and flaws, but the more we understand him and his demons, the less we will blame. He is the prototypical embodiment of the flawed protagonist with a dark childhood embarking on a journey of redemption. He clearly believes to his core the principles he preaches, feeding a sense of urgency that drives his atypical mindset & behavior. I hope he is able to surround himself with those that truly care for him and will enable him to achieve his bold goals while limiting his self destructive tendencies. The world would benefit from more audacious doers like Elon. 🙏🚀🔋🚙🛰️🤖🧠🦾❎⚖️🗣️🌱🌏👨‍🚀🛸🌌✊

One of a kind way to finally understand Elon Musk

I have probably watched every Elon Musk interview and presentation in the last 10 years.
Nothing prepared me to the surprise of actually learning about him so vividly as through this phenomenal biography.

Just fantastic

Classic Isaacson, enjoyed it immensely. Musk, like most people that change the world, is complex and difficult but that goodness for him. The combination of intellence, work ethic, and risk taking may be unmatched in human history

Idiotic treatment with bipolar

Yes, my review is biased by my own personal diagnosis with bipolar. It’s annoying that Musk’s undiagnosed bipolar becomes Isaacson’s shtick throughout the book with his arguable misuse of the word maniacal throughout the book.

This review is more to suggest a discussion on the topic. It seems that Isaacson forgets that bipolar is something that Elon may suffer from as opposed to a character trait. It seems to be more of an instrument to create a villain in his story arc and is distracting, if not, shall we say, maniacal?

Wonderful!

I really enjoyed this book. As usual, Walter Isaacson does a great job of giving us a look into his subject’s life in a very entertaining way. Musk is truly a complex and intriguing individual. It will be interesting to see what he accomplishes when he grows up - if he ever does!

Fascinating!

I didn’t really know much about Elon other than surface things; this was a fairly deep dive, I enjoyed it.