#1 New York Times non-fiction bestseller #2 Sunday Times non-fiction bestseller SHORTLISTED
FOR THE FINANCIAL TIMES BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD CHOSEN AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY APPLE
AMAZON THE TIMES AND FINANCIAL TIMES Epic feats. Epic failures. An epic story. Walter
Isaacson charts Elon Musk’s journey from humble beginnings to one of the wealthiest people on
the planet – but is Musk a genius or a jerk? From the author of Steve Jobs and other
bestselling biographies this is the astonishingly intimate story of Elon Musk 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 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 Walter Isaacson had unprecedented access. He
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? The book
includes over 100 integrated black and white images.
