For his 50th birthday American author Kurt Vonnegut wrote himself a book. Breakfast of Champions is a strange work of fiction, complete with raggedy sketches and repetitive lines such as “Goodbye Blue Mondays!” The story is anchored by one Kilgore Trout, who is inherently suspicious of everything and everyone. Hard to like, Trout stubbornly charts his own path.
You laugh out loud at the book’s brilliance, but you also almost cry at its brutally honest take on reality. Vonnegut’s present to himself ended up being a gift to the world (or, at least, to this reader).
It looks as if techno-tycoon Elon Musk has tried to do something similar. At about the time he turned 50, he gave American writer Walter Isaacson the nod to produce his definitive biography.
Isaacson is a heavyweight in the “genius bio” subgenre, having penned books on Henry Kissinger, Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein and, of course, Steve Jobs (that tome sitting unread on many South African shelves).
What would Isaacson be able to do with the strange individual who is the face of both the shift to electric vehicles and private sector space flight?
Sure, Musk is a tough subject. For one, he’s still alive. And he has been busy. Besides Tesla and SpaceX, he has had a hand in the founding of PayPal, OpenAI, the Boring Company and Neuralink. More recently he bought Twitter — now X — and started a new artificial intelligence (AI) venture.
But he is also a public figure who has tweeted about 30,000 times. That’s like writing a memoir with the whole world watching. Try to find someone who does not have a preconceived idea about the engineer who plans to colonise Mars and who worries so much about declining birth rates on Earth that he has fathered nearly a dozen children.
Any casual Musk watcher would know he is divisive and controversial and mean. His celebrity reminds one more of Donald Trump, Julius Malema or Greta Thunberg than, say, Einstein or Desmond Tutu.
In writing the Musk biography Isaacson had access to almost everyone involved in the celebrity’s life. He spoke to Musk’s brother and erstwhile business partner, Kimbal; his mother, Maye; his father, Errol; his sister; his ex-wives; people he’s fired; as well as friends and enemies. His list of sources fills four pages.
The resulting book, unfortunately, is a bit underwhelming.
Selling the stereotype
The parts about Musk’s family life — his parenting style, his romantic entanglements, his relationship with his father — are a distraction, and a boring one at that. How important is his toxic tryst with Johnny Depp’s ex, Amber Heard, really? Should we even care what outfit he wore to the Met Gala?
The writing could have been a lot tighter. And it should have had a sharper focus on Musk’s business legacy.
One problem is that Isaacson seems to almost always take Musk’s word for it. Only, he often doesn’t identify this as Musk’s version; he presents it as fact
Isaacson does have the knack to know where to put what, so apart from those flabby parts about the subject’s personal life, the book makes for a satisfying enough reading experience. Some sections actually feel as if they are parts of a page-turner — you cannot wait to see what this guy does next! — only for you to be stopped cold by a diversion into the personality traits and toddler-speak of one of his children (often his son “X”).
One problem is that Isaacson almost always seems to take Musk’s word for it (or the family’s word, or whomever the billionaire has put him in touch with). Only, the writer often doesn’t identify this as Musk’s version; he presents it as fact.
For example, as a boy Musk once took a “dangerous” train from Durban to Joburg. Dangerous based on what?
The references to the country of his birth and upbringing often feel a bit like that old stereotype of “elephants walking in the streets”. And it is quite hard to swallow that an upper-middle-class white child with access to computers and video games was somehow a victim of South Africa.
Sure, there is a well-documented incident of bullying, after which Musk was shipped off to a different school. But we have all seen enough nerds getting beaten up by jocks in US teen flicks to suspect it is not a uniquely South African phenomenon.
When it comes to Musk’s early life, Michael Vlismas’s Risking it All paints what seems to be a more authentic picture. Vlismas sought out his own sources for this period in the subject’s life. Maybe he just understood the context better, having also attended Pretoria Boys High, albeit shortly after the billionaire-in-the-making.
Isaacson also skips through Musk’s time at PayPal too quickly, and he seems to see it only as an event on the road to Tesla, SpaceX and the rest. Read Jimmy Soni’s The Founders and you will see it for the formative experience it likely was — not only for Musk, but also for PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and a host of other start-up superstars.
A serious reader will probably like Musk a bit more and Isaacson a bit less after putting this one down
A latter-day Bonaparte?
Isaacson does manage some breathtaking descriptions of Musk’s insane work ethic. It reminds you of Napoleon Bonaparte, whose detail-orientated approach was so excellently unpacked in a recent biography by Andrew Roberts. The constant meddling, tinkering and management shake-ups, the instant decision-making, the lack of sleep and the frequent shoulder-rubbing with the most famous people of his time — does that sound like Musk or Napoleon? Well, both. And there is plenty of hubris to go around.
The only question now is whether Twitter will be Musk’s Russian Campaign. His reception has certainly so far registered the same temperature as a Moscow winter.
Musk’s restlessness can be scary stuff at times, especially when he exhibits child-like impulsive behaviour — though with hundreds of billions of dollars at his disposal. Like Napoleon, he does not seem to be able to sit still and enjoy the spoils of war (or, in his case, those of capitalism).
“This was an essential insight that Musk had about himself. When things were most dire, he got energised. It was the siege mentality from his South African childhood. But when he was not in survival-or-die mode, he felt unsettled. What should have been the good times were unnerving for him,” writes Isaacson.
The author was with Musk at some key moments, and he puts himself in this story on occasion, telling how he got late-night texts from the billionaire, making you wonder whether being a biographer in this case was also like being a Musk employee. Was he, too, afraid of what this once-bullied bully would think of his work?
More than half the book is about the past five years, and Isaacson does a good job of giving more texture to some of Musk’s most recent moves, such as that bizarre decision to buy Twitter. But Isaacson’s subject is a moving target. Musk does a lot. And if he can survive his lifestyle, he will do many more big things still. So you have to ask, should this half decade that was covered really be more than half his life story?
There are a few gems, though. Look out for the interaction between Musk and Bill Gates. You want to see how two heavyweights — both of whom have donned the sash as world’s richest dude — rile each other up. A Gates cameo is also a highlight in Isaacson’s Jobs biography.
Overall, Elon Musk is worth a read and having on your shelf. Sadly, it is not nearly as good as it could have been. A serious reader will probably like Musk a bit more and Isaacson a bit less after putting this one down.
And you won’t have been many pages in before asking: is Musk for real? Or is he an AI-generated billionaire bot? Just like Vonnegut’s Trout, the South African-born engineer and entrepreneur sometimes suspects that he might be a character in a simulation. The rest of us wonder too.
* Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson (Simon & Schuster, 2023)
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