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From the author of Steve Jobs and other bestselling biographies, this is the astonishingly intimate story of the most fascinating and controversial innovator of our era—a rule-breaking visionary who helped to lead the world into the era of electric vehicles, private space exploration, and artificial intelligence. Oh, and took over Twitter.

When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist.

His father’s impact on his psyche would linger. He developed into a tough yet vulnerable man-child, prone to abrupt Jekyll-and-Hyde mood swings, with an exceedingly high tolerance for risk, a craving for drama, an epic sense of mission, and a maniacal intensity that was callous and at times destructive.

At the beginning of 2022—after a year marked by SpaceX launching thirty-one rockets into orbit, Tesla selling a million cars, and him becoming the richest man on earth—Musk spoke ruefully about his compulsion to stir up dramas. “I need to shift my mindset away from being in crisis mode, which it has been for about fourteen years now, or arguably most of my life,” he said.

It was a wistful comment, not a New Year’s resolution. Even as he said it, he was secretly buying up shares of Twitter, the world’s ultimate playground. Over the years, whenever he was in a dark place, his mind went back to being bullied on the playground. Now he had the chance to own the playground.

For two years, Isaacson shadowed Musk, attended his meetings, walked his factories with him, and spent hours interviewing him, his family, friends, coworkers, and adversaries. The result is the revealing inside story, filled with amazing tales of triumphs and turmoil, that addresses the question: are the demons that drive Musk also what it takes to drive innovation and progress?

Table of Contents

Prologue: Muse of Fire

Chapter 1: Adventurers

Chapter 2: A Mind of His Own: Pretoria, the 1970s

Chapter 3: Life with Father: Pretoria, the 1980s

Chapter 4: The Seeker: Pretoria, the 1980s

Chapter 5: Escape Velocity: Leaving South Africa, 1989

Chapter6:Canada: 1989

Chapter 7: Queen's: Kingston, Ontario, 1990- 1991

Chapter 8: Penn: Philadelphia, 1992- 1994

Chapter 9: Go West: Silicon Valley, 1994- 1995

Chapter 10: Zip2: Palo Alto, 1995- 1999

Chapter 11: Justine: Palo Alto, the 1990s

Chapter 12: X.com: Palo Alto, 1999- 2000

Chapter 13: The Coup: PayPal, September 2000

Chapter 14: Mars: SpaceX, 2001

Chapter 15: Rocket Man: SpaceX, 2002

Chapter 16: Fathers and Sons: Los Angeles, 2002

Chapter 17: Rewing Up: SpaceX, 2002

Chapter 18: Musk's Rules for Rocket-Building: SpaceX, 2002-2003

Chapter 19: Mr. Musk Goes to Washington: SpaceX, 2002-2003

Chapter 20: Founders: Tesla, 2003-2004

Chapter 21: The Roadster: Tesla, 2004-2006

Chapter 22: Kwaj: SpaceX, 2005-2006

Chapter 23: Two Strikes: Kwaj, 2006-2007

Chapter 24: The SWAT Team: Tesla, 2006-2008

Chapter 25: Taking the Wheel: Tesla, 2007-2008

Chapter 26: Divorce: 2008

Chapter 27: Talulah: 2008

Chapter 28: Strike Three: Kwaj, August 3, 2008

Chapter 29: On the Brink: Tesla and SpaceX, 2008

Chapter 30: The Fourth Launch: Kwaj, August-September 2008

Chapter 31: Saving Tesla: December 2008

Chapter 32: The Model S: Tesla, 2009

Chapter 33: Private Space: SpaceX, 2009-2010

Chapter 34: Falcon 9 Liftoff: Cape Canaveral, 2010

Chapter 35: Marrying Talulah: September 2010

Chapter 36: Manufacturing: Tesla, 2010- 2013

Chapter 37: Musk and Bezos: SpaceX, 2013- 2014

Chapter 38: The Falcon Hears the Falconer: SpaceX, 2014- 2015

Chapter 39: The Talulah Roller Coaster: 2012- 2015

Chapter 40: Artificial Intelligence: OpenAI, 2012- 2015

Chapter 41: The Launch of Autopilot: Tesla, 2014- 2016

Chapter 42: Solar: Tesla Energy, 2004- 2016

Chapter 43: The Boring Company: 2016

Chapter 44: Rocky Relationships: 2016- 2017

Chapter 45: Descent into the Dark: 2017

Chapter 46: Fremont Factory Hell: Tesla, 2018

Chapter 47: Open-Loop Warning: 2018

Chapter 48: Fallout: 2018

Chapter 49: Grimes: 2018

Chapter 50: Shanghai: Tesla, 2015- 2019

Chapter 51: Cybertruck: Tesla, 2018- 2019

Chapter 52: Starlink: SpaceX, 2015- 2018

Chapter 53: Starship: SpaceX, 2018- 2019

Chapter 54: Autonomy Day: Tesla, April 2019

Chapter 55: Giga Texas: Tesla, 2020- 2021

Chapter 56: Family Life: 2020

Chapter 57: Full Throttle: SpaceX, 2020

Chapter 58: Bezos vs. Musk, Round 2: SpaceX, 2021

Chapter 59: Starship Surge: SpaceX, July 2021

Chapter 60: Solar Surge: Summer 2021

Chapter 61: Nights Out: Summer 2021

Chapter 62: lnspiration4: SpaceX, September 2021

Chapter 63: Raptor Shake-up: SpaceX, 2021

Chapter 64: Optimus Is Born: Tesla, August 2021

Chapter 65: Neuralink: 2017- 2020

Chapter 66: Vision Only: Tesla, January 2021

Chapter 67: Money: 2021- 2022

Chapter 68: Father of the Year: 2021

Chapter 69: Politics: 2020- 2022

Chapter 70: Ukraine: 2022

Chapter 71: Bill Gates: 2022

Chapter 72: Active Investor: Twitter, January- April 2022

Chapter 73: "I made an offer": Twitter, April 2022

Chapter 74: Hot and Cold: Twitter, April- June 2022

Chapter 75: Father's Day: June 2022

Chapter 76: Starbase Shake-up: SpaceX, 2022

Chapter 77: Optimus Prime: Tesla, 2021- 2022

Chapter 78: Uncertainty: Twitter, July- September 2022

Chapter 79: Optimus Unveiled: Tesla, September 2022

Chapter 80: Robotaxi: Tesla, 2022

Chapter 81: "Let that sink in": Twitter, October 26- 27, 2022

Chapter 82: The Takeover: Twitter, Thursday, October 27, 2022

Chapter 83: The Three Musketeers: Twitter, October 26- 30, 2022

Chapter 84: Content Moderation: Twitter, October 27- 30, 2022

Chapter 85: Halloween: Twitter, October 2022

Chapter 86: Blue Checks: Twitter, November 2- 10, 2022

Chapter 87: All In: Twitter, November 10- 18, 2022

Chapter 88: Hardcore: Twitter, November 18- 30, 2022

Chapter 89: Miracles: Neuralink, November 2022

Chapter 90: The Twitter Files: Twitter, December 2022

Chapter 91: Rabbit Holes: Twitter, December 2022

Chapter 92: Christmas Capers: December 2022

Chapter 93: Al for Cars: Tesla, 2022- 2023

Chapter 94: Al for Humans: X.AI, 2023

Chapter 95: The Starship Launch: SpaceX, April 2023

About the Author

Walter Isaacson is the bestselling author of biographies of Jennifer Doudna, Leonardo da Vinci, Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, and Albert Einstein. He is a professor of history at Tulane and was CEO of the Aspen Institute, chair of CNN, and editor of Time. He was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2023. Visit him at Isaacson.Tulane.edu.

Review

Shortlisted for the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year

"Whatever you think of Mr. Musk, he is a man worth understanding— which makes this a book worth reading." — The Economist

"With Elon Musk, Walter Isaacson offers both an engaging chronicle of his subject’s busy life so far and some compelling answers..." — Wall Street Journal

"Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Elon Musk, published Monday, delivers as promised — a comprehensive, deeply reported chronicle of the world-shaping tech mogul’s life, a twin to the author’s similarly thick 2011 biography of Steve Jobs. Details ranging from the personally salacious to the geopolitically volatile have already made the rounds — the rare example of a major book publication causing a news cycle in its own right...What Isaacson’s biography reveals through its personalized lens on Musk’s work with Tesla, SpaceX, OpenAI, and more is not only what Musk wants, but how and why he plans to do it. The portrait that emerges is one that resembles a hard-charging, frequently alienating Gilded Age-style captain of industry, with a particular fixation on AI that ties everything together....Isaacson’s book is like a decoder ring, tying the mercurial Musk’s various obsessions into a coherent worldview with a startlingly concrete goal at its center." — Politico

"[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.

"Isaacson has gathered information from the man’s admirers and critics. He lays all of it out.... The book is bursting with stories....A deeply engrossing tale of a spectacular American innovator. " — New York Journal of Books

"One of the greatest biographers in America has written a massive book about the richest man in the world. This fast-paced biography, based on more than a hundred interviews...[is] a head-spinning tale about a vain, brilliant, sometimes cruel figure whose ambitions are actively shaping the future of human life."—Ron Charles on CBS Sunday Morning

"A painstakingly excavation of the tortured unquiet mind of the world’s richest man… Isaacson’s book is not a soaring portrait of a captain of industry, but rather an exhausting ride through the life of a man who seems incapable of happiness." —The Sunday Times

"An experienced biographer’s comprehensive study." —The Observer

"Walter Isaacson’s all-access biography… Its portrait of the tech maverick is fascinating." —The Telegraph

"Isaacson boils Musk down to two men… the result is a beat-by-beat book that follows him insider important rooms and explores obscure regions of his mind." —The Times