Musk's personality is reflected in detail, without sugar-coating, without erecting him a monument; there are shining parts, but there are also gloomy shadows

Readers hoping to encounter a dispassionate examination of Musk's strengths and weaknesses will be disappointed. Rather than exploring his subject's most notorious flaws within the context of his trailblazing successes, Isaacson seems to have lost himself in the hyper-reality bubble surrounding Musk. A biographer is normally expected to be an impartial observer reporting history without leaving footprints, but Isaacson's role here seems to have evolved into part-time friend, confidante and therapist.For all of his talk of freedom, Musk sidles up to China. This week, he claimed the relationship between Taiwan and China was analogous to that between Hawaii and the US. Taiwan is “an integral part of China that is arbitrarily not part of China”, Musk said. Such comments dovetail with Chinese talking points. He made no reference to US interests. He is a free agent. It’s not just about Russia and Ukraine. Unfortunately for Krebs, it was the first time in three weeks he didn't have a full night shift working on the tower and launchpad. Soft-spoken with a hint of a stutter, he was tentative in his answers, which didn't help. "What is the [expletive] problem?" Musk demanded. "I want to see activity." A special treat for you this morning as the FT’s Gillian Tett shares her New Orleans lunchtime meeting with the world’s foremost biographer, Walter Isaacson. Granted, it is one thing to be cautious toward the hand that is feeding you, and no matter what Isaacson wants to believe about his own supposed neutrality, Elon’s was the hand feeding him these two years. His objectivity was compromised, to say nothing of his neutrality. The billionaire is, by Isaacson’s own account, very persuasive and charismatic in his erratic way, and he lived with this man for two years. How can you even pretend to be objective in this scenario? Tesla share sales. Of course, there’s the time in April 2022 when he sold Tesla shares and said he had no further sales planned, followed by him selling more Tesla shares in August 2022, when he said he was done selling Tesla shares. He sold more shares in November 2022.

In Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, this important figure appears for the first time after 75% of the book; while in Elon Musk, he first appears at the 30% mark of the book.

An obsession with Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

The book] has everything you'd expect from a book on Musk—stories of tragedy, triumph, and turmoil.... While the stories are fascinating and guaranteed to spark a mountain of coverage, founders and entrepreneurs will also unearth valuable lessons." — Inc. It’s pretty good. I really like Isaacson as a writer, he does a good job of keeping this reasonable. I think the limits of this book are due to the nature of the subject, and the sort of shifting sand on which it was written. Isaacson’s reputation as a biographer preceded him, I had seen an interview he gave where he talked about this book extolling how much he worked to present a fair and balanced narrative about the life of controversial entrepreneur Elon Musk, saying he’d followed him for two years and set up a hard condition that he’d have access to everything so he could tell all the good, the bad, and the ugly without Musk having a say in the final published product. It seemed refreshingly honest, conveying an image of a spunky writer looking for the truth and willing to get down and dirty to show the life of a world-changing billionaire as is, no sugarcoating and no punches pulled. We’d finally see the true Musk without the mask of public performance on, as he truly is in private. Who could resist that promise of unvarnished honesty? Worse, in exchange for unprecedented access, the Isaacson Accord demands that a lot of the most difficult and pressing questions go unasked and, therefore, unanswered.