An in depth look at Elon Musk, a high achieving, brilliant and somewhat eccentric entrepreneur.
| Publisher: | Cammeray, NSW : Simon & Schuster, 2023. |
| ISBN: | 978-1-982181-28-4 |
| Characteristics: | 688 pages, Hardcover; 24 cm. |
| Source: |
Once again, Walter Isaacson has done a brilliant job documenting a larger than life personality.
With many chapters (listed below) Isaacson covers Musk’s life well, from his humble beginnings in South Africa where he deals with the tough South African neighbourhood he grows up in, having been beaten up a number of times, to him dominating whatever industry he enters. His father is a bit of a tough master, which no doubt helped shape Musk’s grit.
Like Steve Jobs, you get the impression that his main skill is seeing and driving through ideas, rather than having the same technical know how of those under him. He knows how to get the best out of people, often burning them out.
Musk made some highly lucrative deals in the earlier days of the IT boom, and he has used this wealth to rescue an electric carmaker, build rockets, and perhaps the most controversial of all, to buying and rejuvenating Twitter. And with each he has stamped his own brand by including the letter “X” in the business name. He loves “X” so much, even a child of his has the burden of “X” in their name.
A controversial issue for Tesla car drivers and stock owners are Musk’s promises that never come to fruition. He’s been teasing for years that self drive cars are “only a few years away”, and he’s been saying this for seven years now. My opinion is that there are too many variables too close to the vehicle to ever make self drive cars as safe as the average motorist can drive.
He’s a fascinating figure in history now, and it will be interesting to see what else he achieves. I think going to Mars, with SpaceX or any other way, will never happen due to the vast distances and expenses involved. People take for granted the huge achievement of NASA’s project of getting people on the moon, and Mars is more than 600 times the distance.
The book is a top read and with Isaacson’s meticulous interviewing and recording and expressing of details, the reader is not left wanting. The work is an excellent starter to getting to know Elon Musk.
Chapters
The plentiful and short chapters covering Musk’s life.
Prologue: Muse of fire
- Adventures
- A mind of his own: Pretoria, the 1970s
- Life with father: Pretoria, the 1980s
- The seeker: Pretoria, the 1980s
- Escape velocity: Leaving South Africa, 1989
- Canada: 1989
- Queen’s: Kingston, Ontario, 1990-1991
- Penn: Philadelphia, 1992-1994
- Go west: Silicon Valley, 1994-1995
- Zip2: Palo Alto, 1995-1999
- Justine: Palo Alto, the 1990s
- X.com: Palo Alto 1999-2000
- The coup: PayPal, September 2000
- Mars: SpaceX, 2001
- Rocket man: SpaceX, 2002
- Fathers and sons: Los Angeles, 2002
- Revving up: SpaceX, 2002
- Musk’s rules for rocket-building: SpaceX, 2002-2003
- Mr. Musk goes to Washington: SpaceX, 2002-2003
- Founders: Tesla, 2003-2004
- The roadster: Tesla, 2004-2006
- Kwaj: SpaceX, 2005-2006
- Two strikes: Kwaj, 2006-2007
- The SWAT team: Tesla, 2006-2008
- Taking the wheel: Tesla, 2007-2008
- Divorce: 2008
- Talulah: 2008
- Strike three: Kwaj, August 3, 2008
- On the brink: Tesla and SpaceX, 2008
- The fourth launch: Kwaj, August-September 2008
- Saving Tesla: December 2008
- The Model S: Tesla, 2009
- Private space: SpaceX, 2009-2010
- Falcon 9 liftoff: Cape Canaveral, 2010
- Marrying Talulah: September 2010
- Manufacturing: Tesla, 2010-2013
- Musk and Bezos: SpaceX, 2013-2014
- The falcon hears the falconer: SpaceX, 2014-2015
- The Talulah roller coaster: 2012-2015
- Artificial intelligence: OpenAI, 2012-2015
- The launch of autopilot: Tesla, 2014-2016
- Solar: Tesla energy, 2004-2016
- The Boring Company: 2016
- Rocky relationships: 2016-2017
- Descent into the dark: 2017
- Fremont factory hell: Tesla, 2018
- Open-loop warning: 2018
- Fallout: 2018
- Grimes: 2018
- Shanghai: Tesla, 2015-2019
- Cybertruck: Tesla, 2018-2019
- Starlink: SpaceX, 2015-2018
- Starship: SpaceX, 2018-2019
- Autonomy day: Tesla, April 2019
- Giga Texas: Tesla, 2020-2021
- Family life: 2020
- Full throttle: SpaceX, 2020
- Bezos vs. Musk, round 2: SpaceX, 2021
- Starship surge: SpaceX, July 2021
- Solar surge: summer 2021
- Nights out: summer, 2021
- Inspiration4: SpaceX, September 2021
- Raptor shake-up: SpaceX, 2021
- Optimus is born: Tesla, August 2021
- Neuralink: 2017-2020
- Vision only: Tesla, January 2021
- Money: 2021-2022
- Father of the year: 2021
- Politics: 2020-2022
- Ukraine: 2022
- Bill Gates: 2022
- Active investor: Twitter, January-April 2022
- “I made an offer”: Twitter, April 2022
- Hot and cold: Twitter, April-June 2022
- Father’s Day: June 2022
- Starbase shake-up: SpaceX, 2022
- Optiumus Prime: Tesla, 2021-2022
- Uncertainty: Twitter, July-September 2022
- Optimus unveiled: Tesla, September 2022
- Robotaxi: Tesla, 2022
- “Let that sink in”: Twitter, October 26-27, 2022
- The takeover: Twitter, Thursday, October 27, 2022
- The three musketeers: Twitter, October 26-30, 2022
- Content moderation: Twitter, October 27-30, 2022
- Halloween: Twitter, October 2022
- Blue checks: Twitter, November 2-10, 2022
- All in: Twitter, November 10-18, 2022
- Hardcore: Twitter, November 18-30, 2022
- Miracles: Neuralink, November 2022
- The Twitter files: Twitter, December 2022
- Rabbit holes: Twitter, December 2022
- Christmas capers: December 2022
- AI for cars: Tesla, 2022-2023
- AI for humans: X.AI, 2023
- The starship launch: SpaceX, April 2023.
Featured image: Photo by SpaceX
