Elon Musk

Isaacson portrays Elon Musk as a complex figure: an extremely driven and ambitious visionary with grand plans to save the world. Musk, Isaacson argues, has been shaped by childhood adversity, and it is this adversity, coupled with Musk’s ambition and his neurodivergence, which cause Musk to stir up drama and crises and bulldoze through obstacles without much regard for consequences.

The early chapters of the book center on Musk’s childhood, focusing on the abuse and hardship Musk endured—experiences which, Isaacson argues, shaped Musk’s aggressive behavior as an adult. Isaacson sometimes leans on portrayals imparted to him by Musk’s ex-partners, as when his ex-wife Justine explains, “[w]ith a childhood like his in South Africa, I think you have to shut yourself down emotionally in some ways” (5). Isaacson repeatedly notes Musk’s lack of empathy, attributing it to a combination of PTSD and neurodivergence. These explanations are echoed by the ex-partners and employees whom Isaacson quotes throughout the book. Isaacson seems to accept that it is simply not in Musk’s nature to be empathetic, since “he didn’t have the emotional receptors that produce everyday kindness and warmth and a desire to be liked” (19). This portrays Musk in a mechanistic way which reflects his ventures in cars and rockets, implying that Musk is inextricable from the technology he develops and hence suggesting that Musk’s achievements may excuse his lack of tact and kindness.

According to Isaacson, Musk’s difficult childhood conditioned him to crave conflict: “He developed a siege mentality that included an attraction, sometimes a craving, for storm and drama” (6). Isaacson structure the text around the cyclical buildups, climaxes, and fallouts from these storms. A quote from Kimbal reinforces this assessment: “He is a drama magnet. […] That’s his compulsion, the theme of his life” (6). Isaacson repeats this theme throughout the book, observing that Musk ginned up crises at each of his companies whenever he felt the need to escape or distract himself from his life.

Isaacson notes that Musk possesses many seemingly contradictory facets: “He developed a fervor that cloaked his goofiness, and a goofiness that cloaked his fervor” (6). By drawing attention to The Contradictions of Musk’s Personality, Isaacson suggests that Musk is resistant and yet engaging as his biographical subject, mirroring the “on-again-off-again” intensity of Musk’s real relationships. Levchin, while acquainting himself with Musk during the PayPal merger, felt that it was hard to distinguish whether Musk was serious or goofy from one moment to the next: “Was his arm-wrestling gambit serious? Were his bouts of maniacal intensity punctuated by goofball humor and game-playing calculated or crazed?” (80). These questions do not summarize Musk but rather paint him as an enigma.

Isaacson also comments on Musk’s desire to save the world: “With the conviction of a prophet, he would speak about the need to nurture the flame of human consciousness, fathom the universe, and save our planet” (6). This is a desire that Isaacson buys into: “[T]he more I encountered it, the more I came to believe that his sense of mission was part of what drove him. While other entrepreneurs struggled to develop a worldview, he developed a cosmic view” (6). Isaacson uses superhero-like language to construct Musk as an anti-hero who will anger other entrepreneurs but success in a “mission” of “cosmic” proportions. Isaacson implies that Musk may be up to this grandiose mission, suggesting that Musk is at once otherworldly and deeply human: “You’d not be totally shocked if he ripped off his shirt and you discovered that he had no navel and was not of this planet born. But his childhood also made him all too human, a tough yet vulnerable boy who decided to embark on epic quests” (6). These epic quests, Isaacson argues, may outweigh the consequences of Musk’s behavior.

In Elon Musk, Elon’s father Errol is characterized as the primary antagonist in the story. While Errol is mostly present only in the early chapters of the book, his influence is felt in the background of Musk’s psyche as Isaacson portrays Elon’s rise to fame and The Impact of Childhood PTSD. Isaacson situates Errol as a formative force in Elon’s childhood, noting that Errol’s abuse affected Elon for years to come.

According to Isaacson, Elon and his brother, Kimbal, describe Errol as “a volatile fabulist, regularly spinning tales that are larded with fantasies, sometimes calculated and at other times delusional” (4). Isaacson describes Errol’s erratic behavior as frightening, saying, “He has a Jekyll-and-Hyde nature, they say. One minute he would be friendly, the next he would launch into an hour or more of unrelenting abuse” (4). These sudden tirades deeply affected Elon as a child. Throughout the book, Isaacson attributes much of Elon’s psychological anguish and abusive behavior to the legacy of Elon’s father. Isaacson’s presentation of Errol as the antagonistic figure also provides the biography with its sense of intimacy, since he enriches well-reported stories (including Elon’s management style and divorces) with more private details.

Isaacson notes that Errol had a tendency to fall into conspiratorial thinking, writing that “occasionally he would become dark, verbally abusive, and possessed by fantasies and conspiracies” (36). Later in the book, he mentions that Errol became increasingly paranoid and swept up in far-right, racist theories that he would try to impart to Elon.