Book review: Elon Musk’s reputation brings the hype to this grim biography

Tesla CEO and billionaire Elon Musk’s impetuous decisions are laid bare in this new biography

Elon Musk. Picture: Michel Euler/AP

Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Elon Musk comes with plenty of hype, as you might expect.

The book’s subject, the South African billionaire behind Tesla, Neuralink, Starlink, X (formerly known as Twitter) and other businesses is the kind of global figure who tends to flicker on the edges of many people’s consciousness, with the occasional eruption garnering our full attention. His purchase of Twitter was one such moment, and that social media platform’s various travails, including financial losses and downsizing, have kept Musk in the limelight long after he arrived into Twitter’s main office, triumphant with ownership and carrying a sink.