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”.
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PHOTO REED HOFFMANN, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
Satellites from Starlink, one of Elon Musk’s companies, streak across the sky above an abandoned house in Kansas. This constellation of thousands of satellites makes it possible to connect to the internet anywhere on Earth. Ukrainian forces have been able to take advantage of this system in their battles against Russia.
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PHOTO JOE SKIPPER, REUTERS ARCHIVES
SpaceX Falcon 9 launcher. The company founded by Elon Musk notably offers its services to NASA. It is SpaceX, for example, which must transport astronauts, including Canadian Jeremy Hansen, to the Moon at the end of 2024 as part of the Artemis II mission.
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PHOTO MIKE STEWART, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
Tesla, a company led by Elon Musk, has shaken up the automotive world with its electric vehicles, sales of which have seen strong growth in recent years.
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PHOTO CARLOS BARRIA, REUTERS ARCHIVES
In April 2022, Elon Musk bought the social network Twitter for the sum of 44 billion US dollars. The new owner has since put the company under his control, often with unexpected and sometimes unpopular changes with both users and advertisers. Since the summer of 2023, the Twitter name has given way to X.
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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. .
Extract
“But would a self-controlled Musk accomplish as much as an unbridled Musk? Isn’t the lack of filters and attachments an integral part of who he is? Could we send rockets into orbit or organize the transition to electric vehicles while ignoring all aspects of one’s personality, balanced and unbalanced? Sometimes the great innovators are man-children and hotheads who resist potty training. They can be reckless, embarrassing, sometimes even toxic. They can also be crazy. Crazy enough to think they can change the world. »
Who is Walter Isaacson?
If Elon Musk is the most talked about biography this fall, of course because of its subject matter. But it’s also because it was written by Walter Isaacson. It also previously looked – notably – at the life of the big boss of Apple, Steve Jobs, and at that of the artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci. This historian, who was once the president of CNN and the editor-in-chief of the magazine Timestill teaches at Tulane University in New Orleans.
Elon Musk
Fayard
621 pages