Walter Isaacson spent two years shadowing Elon Musk, but he had a challenge on his hands. How could he tell us something new about a man who seems to live his life so openly on a 24-hour Twitter feed? An industrialist who has been the subject of two biographies and hundreds of thousands of articles in the media and countless documentaries?
Isaacson’s access was unparalleled, however, and he was also able to hear from the billionaire’s closest circle. One of Isaacson’s main contributions is to give a psychological understanding of such a complex man who can flip from brilliant to immature, kind to cruel and inspired to foolish. That begins with Musk’s father, Errol.
Musk has had a fraught relationship with his South African father,
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