Author of Steve Jobs and other bestselling biographies, Walter Isaacson charts Elon Musk’s leap from humble beginnings to one of the wealthiest people on the planet – Is Musk a genius or a Jerk?

Elon Musk, 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, and of course control of Twitter.

As a kid in South Africa, Elon Musk 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 hospital for over a week.  Although the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer,  rogue, and charismatic fantasist. Elon Musk developed into a tough yet vulnerable man0chld with an exceedingly high tolerance of 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 Space X launching thirty-one  rockets into orbit, Tesla selling a million cars, and him becoming the richest man on earth – as Musk spoke ruefully about is compulsion to stir up drama “ 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.

Even as he said it, he was secretly buying up shares of Twitter, the world’s ultimate playground.

Walter Isaacson shadowed Musk, attended his meetings, walked his factories with him and spent hours interviewing him, his family, friends, co-workers  and adversaries.  This revealing inside story, filled with amazing tales of triumphs and turmoil, that addresses  the question are demons that drive Musk also what it takes to drive innovation and progress ?

Why the man who many people feel is the world’s greatest entrepreneur is also a libertarian narcissist prone to meddling in democracy and geopolitics, not to mention verbal abuse and hypocrisy.. Musk who views himself as climate saviour even as he sends his private plane across the country to pick up a pet dog.   

Musk’s  who grew up in South Africa, with an emotionally abusive father and a masochistic mother, as being a traumatized Asperger-y guy who turned his pain into entrepreneurial drive. Musk launched  a payment platform PayPal and the rocket company Space X. turbocharging electric car maker Tesla, as well as relaunching  the social media platform Twitter as X.

Musk often repeats the sins of the father with partners, colleagues and random strangers, while he is changing the world is due to the fact that he is changing it, at least in the author’s view.

 Musk’s 75-year-old mum Maye ( a major and constant presence in his life) his investors and his multiple wives and partners. Isaacson highlights Musk’s dietary habits and Met Gala preparations to his struggles with a transgender child who rejected both Musk and capitalism.

His partners include  the musician and performance artist Grimes, mother to three of his 10 living children. Musk fell in love with her after she compared his power to that of the Middle Earth wizard Gandalf, and subsequently passed his rapid fire trivia test on The Lord of the Rings.

Elon Musk buy Walter Isaacson, Simon & Schuster £28/$35, 688 pages