Elon Musk

Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson — Published by Simon & Schuster (2023)

#1 New York Times Bestseller

From the acclaimed biographer of Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, and Leonardo da Vinci comes the definitive, authorized biography of the world's most consequential and polarizing entrepreneur.

Walter Isaacson spent two years with Musk, attending his meetings, walking his factories with him, and having long conversations with his family, friends, colleagues, and adversaries. The result is an intimate, sweeping account of a man driven by an obsession to save humanity — from climate change through electric vehicles, from dependence on fossil fuels through solar energy, from the existential threat posed by artificial intelligence through his own AI companies, and from the possibility of civilization's collapse through a permanent human presence on Mars.

The book traces Musk's arc from a lonely, bullied child in South Africa who found refuge in science fiction and computing, through his early entrepreneurial ventures in Silicon Valley, to the creation of PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink, and X — illuminating the demons that drive him, the manias that fuel him, and the mission that has come to define him. Isaacson probes the contradictions at the heart of one of history's most complex figures: a man who can be brilliant and cruel, visionary and reckless, funny and callous — and who has transformed multiple industries while leaving chaos in his wake.

Walter Isaacson is a professor of history at Tulane University and a former chairman and CEO of CNN and editor of Time magazine. His other biographies include Steve Jobs, Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo da Vinci, and The Code Breaker. He is widely considered the preeminent biographer of the innovators and visionaries who have shaped the modern world.