Walter Isaacson

[4.25] My inner-voice taunted me as I proceeded to check out this bulky biography. “Do you really want to invest the time to read more than 600 pages about Elon Musk?” Candidly, I wasn’t sure. As many of my reviews have noted, any tome that exceeds 400 pages has to be exceptional to keep my attention. Isaacson passed the test with flying colors. Certainly, my lifelong interest in all-things-business was undoubtedly a factor. I was fascinated by Isaacson’s deep-dives into the inner workings of Tesla, Space X, Neuralink and the company that was once known as Twitter. A value added feature was learning stuff about a Musk-inspired company I had never even heard of before: The Boring Company. This meticulously researched biography is anything but boring. Musk’s quirky and multidimensional persona kept this saga moving at an impressive clip. My only minor criticism is that there were numerous passages that spurred me to wonder if the biographer may have become a bit too “chummy” with his subject. As a lifelong journalist, I’ve always believed in the importance of some level of detachment between the journalist and the source. I can understand why some readers have wondered aloud whether Isaacson’s two-year encounter with Musk may have steered him off the path of impartiality. This is certainly not to imply that the biographer gave short shrift to any of Musk’s glaring flaws. But there are several sections that feel a bit like the biographer became a friend or sympathetic therapist.… (mer)