Writings / Elon Musk | Visionary, powerful, brilliant and… toxic

Let’s start with an irrefutable observation: Elon Musk is a fascinating person, and, inevitably, his biography is too. Especially since it was written by a renowned expert in this type of work, the historian Walter Isaacson.

The entrepreneur is fascinating both for his exploits (above all the successes of Tesla and SpaceX) and for what seems to push him to bring these projects to fruition with incredible determination.

Since his years at university, he has wanted to change the world, underlines his biographer. He was already thinking, in the 1990s, “about the progress that would really affect humanity”. He believes that life should be about “the pursuit of big dreams”.

Inspiring? To be honest, the further we read this 600-page book, the less Elon Musk enchants us.

Of course, he has undeniable qualities. He is a visionary who knows how to surround himself well and who understands that success “comes from your ability to produce a product efficiently”.

But what we also discover is that Elon Musk is an execrable being.

Walter Isaacson describes him as a “supercharged genius addicted to risk and psychodrama”.

In my opinion, that’s… an understatement.

Obviously, being around him means living in the same room as a bomb that threatens to explode and which, you know only too well, will end up exploding.

Explosions are frequent. And the collateral damage is numerous.

At work, he is toxic. He’s a tough guy who has some really good ideas, yes. It’s brilliant, yes. But he is as brutal as his ego is oversized.

He terrifies his employees, over whom he reigns like a real tyrant. He invents unnecessary crises to make them work day and night. He yells at them. He fires whoever he wants, whenever he wants.

At home – when he finds the time to show up – it’s not much better. Thus, “conflicts dominate” in his relationship with Justine, his first wife.

“During their most serious arguments, she says she hates him and he says things like ‘if you were my employee, I would fire you.’ Sometimes he calls her a “cunt” or an “idiot” – words that are chillingly reminiscent of his father,” the biography reveals.

Along with all this, sometimes Elon Musk “comes dangerously close” to conspiracy theories. And since he bought Twitter, it’s alarming.

Walter Isaacson recounts all this, but he is surprisingly lenient about the entrepreneur’s escapades, even if he admits that he “can act like a real asshole.”

In fact, he repeatedly suggests that behaving like a despot who possesses a “demon mode” is essential to Elon Musk’s success.

Three-quarters of the way through the book, I began to think that the biographer has Stockholm syndrome. That he enjoyed such privileged access to her subject for two years that he ended up adopting her point of view.

This is one of the two great faults of this biography, the second being that we dwell on too many details. One example among others: we are treated to the story of all the technical feats that allowed Elon Musk to increase production at the Tesla vehicle assembly plant in Fremont, California, to 5,000 cars per week. 2018. It wasn’t necessary.

Nevertheless, despite its imperfections, and if you are prepared to devote many hours to this unpleasant innovator, this is the book to read to try to elucidate the Musk mystery.

It allowed me to understand that the entrepreneur, perhaps the most powerful in the world (his controversial involvement in the Ukrainian conflict reminded us), still has many surprises in store for us… and certainly not only good ones. .

Elon Musk

Walter Isaacson (translated by Johan-Frédérik Hel-Guedj and Pierre Reignier)

Fayard

621 pages