Elon Musk
This was a fascinating character portrayal – as good as if it were fiction! Elon Musk is such an enigma–how does one man accomplish as much as he has? What kind of a person does one have to be? This answers the question, more or less. Isaacson’s portrayal certainly appeared to me to be (mostly) unbiased, depicting Musk as hard-driving, brilliant, and hilarious at times, but also haunted, flawed, and often a complete jerk. I have to wonder, since it became clear as I listened that Musk and Isaacson had become friends (not too surprising since Isaacson would have had to have followed him around for years in order to paint such a clear picture of the man), whether anything that appears in the book is a betrayal of a confidence. If I were Musk, I’d certainly feel overly exposed. But then again, if he hadn’t shown all sides of the man, it wouldn’t have been an interesting read, and I wouldn’t have found Musk nearly so sympathetic as I did. By the end, I felt like Musk was my friend… albeit a mercurial one around whom I’d probably feel I needed to walk on eggshells.
I’ve never read a biography of someone who was still alive that I can recall before, so it’s also interesting to read what was going on in Musk’s life when various things I read about in the headlines were occurring. My one complaint about the way the story was told was that Isaacson inserted his own politics in the narrative, when Musk’s changing politics required coverage. He did it in such a way, though, as to imply that there was only one “right” way to view various situations, and Musk fell on the wrong side of it. I found that annoying, though it didn’t ruin the book for me.
My rating: ****1/2
Language: a LOT. But that’s just because all the people in the book curse a lot, I guess.
Sexual content: none
Violence: none
Political content: a decent amount
