Author: He Qianming and Li Zinan

Another addition to the genius biography sales portfolio

Walter Isaacson, 71, is known as a "genius biographer." Not only because he has writing talent, but also because he has written biographies of Franklin, Leonardo da Vinci, Einstein, Jobs and many other geniuses. On Amazon, these works are packaged and sold in a "genius biography" package, which now includes an additional book.

In the second half of 2021, Isaacson identified Elon Musk as his next writing target. Previously, the two parties only chatted on the phone for more than an hour before finalizing the matter. Isaacson asked to be "like Musk's shadow", attending every one of his business meetings and family gatherings, entering the production lines of Tesla and SpaceX, and interviewing his family members.

Because it was Walter Isaacson, Musk agreed, giving him "power into his own life." The writer also emphasized to Musk, "You can't control what I write, this is a biography." Musk agreed.

How Isaacson chose his writing subjects is shown in the sequence of his published works. In 2004, after he finished writing Franklin and was about to write Einstein, he received a call from Jobs, who said he wanted to take a walk and chat together. After meeting, Jobs asked Isaacson to write a biography of him. But Isaacson thought that Jobs was in a period of career fluctuations and refused to agree. He also asked him if he thought he was "suitable to be the next person in that sequence." It wasn't until Jobs became seriously ill five years later that Isaacson began to write his biography, and after his death It was published shortly afterwards and set a new sales record.

Prior to this, Jobs had suggested that Isaacson write Leonardo da Vinci next: "Because you are writing about someone who can connect art, science and technology." Isaacson wrote Leonardo da Vinci.

Isaacson would spend about a week a month following Musk into the offices of Tesla, SpaceX and later Twitter, attending meetings and family gatherings. Now, he has finished writing a chronicle of the 52-year-old Musk. The Chinese version has 600,000 words, 600 pages, and is divided into 95 chapters.

Isaacson’s “Biography of a Genius” is available in packages on Amazon.com.

As a biographer, Isaacson's curiosity has never been about "money" or whether the other party is a new "richest man", but about his side of promoting technological innovation. He saw in Musk many qualities similar to those of an innovative pioneer. He listed a long list of names: from Thomas Edison to Nikola Tesla, Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Benjamin Franklin, Leo Nado da Vinci.

As far as those names are still alive, he thinks Musk is far more interesting and important than the likes of Jeff Bezos.

"The funniest man alive," Isaacson said. At a more grandiose moment he would say, "The most interesting man in the solar system."

"He used electric vehicles, solar energy and energy storage to bring us into the era of sustainable energy, and also sent humans into space, which will bring us into a new era of space exploration." In November 2021, Isaacson said in "Times" The magazine published an article explaining why this person will be recorded in history, using parallel paragraphs to introduce how Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, Boring Company and other companies run by Musk at the time changed different fields.

There is no doubt that Musk is a good person to write about because he provides the most exciting conflicts. But he is a person who does not provide exclusive news in many cases. He only "detonates". This is another big trouble for the writer. Does he have any secrets? It’s not even the first biography.

Many people are familiar with Musk's life story. He has been in business for more than 20 years and experienced many times of collapse. However, he has built at least three successful companies, spanning the fields of automobiles, aerospace, and finance. As a result, he has become the world's richest man, and has also worked with three companies. A woman gives birth to 10 children. His face appears on the cover of Time magazine and in gossip tabloids, and his tweets trigger public opinion at any time.

Twenty minutes after the call with Musk ended, Isaacson's phone was buzzing with calls. Because Musk tweeted again: If you’re curious about what’s going on with Tesla, SpaceX, and me, @WalterIsaacson is writing a biography.

The new writing subject showed him the uncontrollable impulse side of his personality as quickly as possible. This is just one example he sees of Musk’s recklessness.

He soon saw the "unusual" nature of Musk: a man who had no control over his impulses and was addicted to risk.

Musk is one of the few innovators, but the other side of the matter is that he is cruel and ruthless in his treatment of others, which has hurt many people, and some of his cruelty is unnecessary.

Isaacson. Image courtesy of the Appens Institute. Photographer: Patrice Gilbert.

Isaacson used the materials collected in the past two years to understand the question he most wanted to understand - is the demon that drives Musk in his heart also necessary to promote innovation and progress?

Isaacson believes that when we talk about Musk, it should be clear what the most important issues are. He himself puts "innovation" in the most important position, while critics often put this person's "cruelty" in the first place. How to evaluate a person is sometimes a very difficult philosophical question. The author reminds us that we should look at the relationship between these two things. Behind the question is a pertinent suggestion: try to understand people and their complexity.

"We can appreciate a person's strengths and criticize his shortcomings, but we must also understand how these factors are intertwined and difficult to separate. To understand his personality as a whole, we must accept the dark side that is difficult to separate." He wrote.

Isaacson sees his role as presenting, not judging. “For those of us who have the opportunity to sit alongside people who are changing the world, at least try to write the first version of this story,” he said.

Darkness and light intertwined in one person

Isaacson asked not to become even a small character in Musk's own storyline. "(During the interview) I will avoid asking him questions and just observe." Even when Musk is silent, he hopes to observe and experience his silence rather than break it with questions.

This is the consciousness of a biographer. “In life, we can only appreciate the good sides of a person and not like the dark sides, and the biographer needs to try to figure out how they are intertwined and not just pick out the parts.”

In the book and on podcasts, Isaacson quotes Shakespeare to illustrate his understanding of human complexity: “All heroes have flaws, and some are trapped by them, and some end in tragedy. And the characters we think of as villains are probably more complex and multifaceted than the heroes." Isaacson said that even the most benign person's personality is "shaped by flaws."

Isaacson was often asked to compare this new biographer to his previous subjects, especially Jobs. Isaacson mentioned a past incident when writing "The Biography of Steve Jobs". He asked Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak: Is it necessary for Jobs to be so mean, so brutal, and so addicted to dramatic conflicts? ? The other party's answer was that if this were not the case, the Macintosh computer might not be possible, and Apple might not be so great.

Isaacson transferred Wozniak's understanding of Jobs to Musk: If Musk were more relaxed and approachable, would he still be the person who wanted to send us to Mars and into the future of electric cars? ? But this is nothing new. Musk himself defended himself this way on the entertainment program Saturday Night Live: "I reinvented the electric car, and I want to use rocket ships to send humans to Mars. But if I were calm, Easy-going ordinary people, do you think I can still do this?"

Isaacson hopes readers will get their own answers from his carefully crafted stories. In "The Biography of Elon Musk", when Tesla and SpaceX achieved breakthroughs, they were often associated with Musk's ruthless, cruel and brutal performance. For example, when solving the Model 3 mass production problem in 2017, Musk would fire a young man on the spot who had been working at Tesla for nearly a year and seven days a week with his luggage because of an error in the adjustment of a robotic arm.

Even if there is no problem to solve, Musk will suddenly lose his temper. In July 2021, SpaceX has gone through many hardships and become a stable and reliable partner of NASA. It is the world's leading aerospace company. The next big goal is to launch a Starship that is expected to fly to Mars in 20 months. But late one Friday night, Musk suddenly went to the SpaceX office and found that no one was working, and he immediately broke out. He roared at the employees on duty: "I want to see everyone move for me!" At 1 a.m., Musk sent an all-employee email asking employees who were not working on key projects to come back and work overtime immediately.

The final result was that it took only 10 days for SpaceX employees to put the rocket on the launch pad, but due to government approvals, it could not be launched for a long time. Musk was satisfied and said that this incident had given him "regained confidence in the future of mankind."

Isaacson wrote in the book: "This crisis operation created out of thin air allowed the team to maintain its hard-core combat capabilities and also slightly satisfied Musk's desire for drama."

Isaacson tries to figure out where Musk's drive comes from and why the man exhibits the traits he does: "For me or any biographer, it usually goes back to childhood." A detailed account of Musk's upbringing is this An increment to this biography.

In digging into Musk's childhood family life, Isaacson went deeper than any previous writer, and at least got a lot of clues to understand the protagonist. He interviewed those closest to Musk, especially his father, Errol Musk, who had previously failed to break through, and got direct quotes from him. In another Musk biography published in 2015, author Ashlee Vance tried to contact Errol but received a warning from Musk.

Frequent exchanges with Errol Musk helped Isaacson restore Musk's childhood experience and clarify the father's influence on Musk.

He described Errol Musk as "an engineer, a scoundrel, and a charismatic visionary" and presented the trauma and influence the father had on his son, comparing him to "Darth Vader." "(The tragic and contradictory character in "Star Wars" fell into darkness due to physical and mental destruction). These influences have shaped Musk and become a part of who he is. Musk's younger brother, Kimball Musk, said his father seemed to have a split personality, being friendly and charming one moment and cold and cruel the next. Their father's constant lies also affect their sense of reality. Relatives and friends say that Musk can see the shadow of his father. But Errol seemed proud that his son had inherited his harsh, authoritarian style and copied it into Musk's relationships with others.

Musk and his father as a child. Image via Isaacson’s social media.

Musk’s first wife, Justine Wilson, felt that because of the kind of childhood he had, “you had to close your heart to other people to a certain extent.” He became ruthless, but it also made him risk-taking. "He learned to eliminate fear. If you block fear, then maybe you have to block other emotions, such as happiness and empathy." As we all know, Musk does not have the latter two abilities.

Grimes, the mother of Musk's other three children, feels that the most profound restriction brought to him by his childhood is: life is pain. Musk agreed, saying it made his pain threshold very high.

Musk is aware of and trying to break away from his father's influence. Justine would use "You are becoming more and more like your father" as a code word, "warning him that he is falling into darkness."

Writer Jill Lepore said in a book review in The New Yorker that Isaacson focused too much on Musk’s father’s influence during his childhood and ignored the social context at that time: “From “Elon Musk” "In the biography, we would not have known that when Musk was 4 years old, approximately 20,000 black schoolchildren protested, and heavily armed police killed as many as 700 of them."

In a biography of Musk published in 2015, author Ashley Vance believed that similar racial conflict incidents were one of the sources of Musk's formation and strengthening of "the belief that humanity needs to be saved."

Isaacson did not establish this direct causal connection. In his presentation, Musk's character is not influenced by a single factor - not a mind map, but more like a picture with multiple perspectives, multiple clues, and sometimes murky clarity.

He was influenced by his father's dark side, but also benefited from the unfettered time his mother always had to make ends meet. The exact risk-taking gene he carries may come more from his maternal grandfather. He was an unscrupulous adventurer who traveled in private jets in those days. “The Flying Haldemans,” people said. My grandfather led his family to search for the lost city in the desert, became obsessed with flying, and eventually died of flying.

Musk loves physics and was puzzled by Bible stories in school ("What do you mean the water separated?" he asked. "That's impossible.") while Isaacson dug through his childhood material. , found early evidence of his obsession with rockets, and also found that as a teenager, Musk repeatedly read a book describing the great inventions of the future in his father's office. And that book inspired him to start thinking about humans landing on other planets.

Musk is determined and strong, and Isaacson discovered that he had amazing deeds when he was 5 years old, which shows that once he makes a decision, he cannot waver. This made Musk's brother feel "really scary" and "incredible." As a child, Musk, as people would later note, could no longer see or hear anything and "all the sensory systems would shut down" whenever he started thinking about hard problems.

Musk was deeply shaped by time spent in science fiction novels and games. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is mentioned 11 times in the book. Isaacson called it Musk's "enlightenment 'Bible' in his childhood," which saved him from the existential depression of adolescence, inspired him to pay attention to the ultimate issues of the universe, shaped his value system, and gave him back His unsmiling and clumsy personality added a touch of humor.

“Musk was impressed by the passion of superheroes for their all-or-nothing endeavors.” Isaacson showed how Musk became fascinated by heroism. He told the writer, "They always want to save the world, but they wear underwear or tight iron clothes. If you think about it carefully, you will find it weird, but they are really trying to save the world."

Ex-girlfriend Jennifer Gwen’s photo of Musk in college. Source: Musk’s social media.

Musk’s cycle: pull out a rabbit from a hat, block the sword above your head, start a fire drill, pull out the next rabbit

Isaacson showed Musk's many entrepreneurial experiences from 1995 to the present. They all have similar narrative logic, like cycles.

Musk's dissatisfaction with the status quo of an industry and his desire to disrupt is usually the starting point of one of his entrepreneurial stories. Subversion requires Musk to be unsatisfied with the status quo and adopt unusual methods. Musk will set time points and expectations that are extremely difficult for the team to achieve, which sometimes puts the company into crisis, but Musk and the team are ultimately able to overcome the difficulties through hard work and wisdom.

When he founded the Internet company X.com in March 1999, Musk aimed to subvert the traditional banking industry. From this point on, Musk's management strategy was to set an almost impossible goal for a task and then push others to achieve it. Jobs did the same thing. He would also say to his colleagues, "Don't be afraid, you can do it." But Musk didn't say that.

Isaacson gives an example in the book that illustrates Musk’s risk-hungry nature. In 2000, in order to show Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel how fast his McLaren sports car was, Musk stepped on the accelerator to the bottom in the fast lane, then hit an embankment and shattered the body. Not only was Musk not frightened, he smiled and said: "At least McLaren showed my adventurous spirit." Isaacson quoted Sequoia Capital partner Roulof Botha to explain the incident: A car accident is like As a metaphor, he likes to expand risks, destroy everything, and leave everyone with no way out.

In 2002, SpaceX co-founder Thomas Mueller gave Musk a Merlin engine development schedule that had been shortened by half, but Musk asked Mueller to shorten the time by half again.

Because of Musk's radicalism, Tesla fell into crisis twice in 2007 and 2017. A year before the launch of Tesla's first car, the Roadster, Musk temporarily changed the chassis design, which prevented the team from using the off-the-shelf chassis purchased from Lotus, requiring redesign and changes to the supply chain within a year. Before delivering the Model 3 in 2017, Musk requested that workers be replaced with robots to increase the automation rate of the factory. The plan ultimately failed and Tesla fell into production hell. Musk slept in the factory again, tightening screws and disassembling robotic arms, and Tesla got through the difficulties.

Isaacson sees the radical goals and strategies adopted by Musk as inevitable for the success of Tesla and SpaceX, which put Musk's company in crisis and allowed him to create an extraordinary career. Musk has never stopped promoting such a cycle. Tesla and SpaceX have corrected their mistakes and grown through repeated failures and crises. Musk is not only radical, not only has a vision, but also has strong execution ability.

Isaacson said one difference between Musk and Jobs is that Musk slept in factories, while Jobs never even went to a mobile phone assembly line. Musk is not a "fingertip genius" like Jobs who combines technology and art. He is an engineer who believes in physics.

During the startup of SpaceX, Musk formed his own work philosophy "five-step working method". The first is to question every requirement, the second is to delete the parts and processes that can be deleted in the requirements, the third is to optimize the process after deletion, and the fourth is to The first is to speed up the process turnaround time, and the fifth is to automate the process.

Musk has preached this work method many times and regarded it as truth. Isaacson adds additional explanations in the book about how this set of work practices guides Tesla and SpaceX employees. Musk requires employees to maintain a crazy sense of urgency, which is the law of the company's operations; the only rules employees have to follow are the laws of physics, and other rules are just "suggestions."

In Isaacson's writing, almost all employees who said "impossible" to Musk were fired by him. Musk's standard for judging whether something is true is physics. If the reason for saying "impossible" is not physics, Musk will think that employees are lying or lazy.

Isaacson believes that this stems from the philosophy formed by Musk in his youth. He believes that physics is the best theory to understand the world - "He has seen people who violate the law, but he has never seen people who violate the laws of physics." .

In 2021, when Isaacson decided to write "A Biography of Elon Musk," it didn't look like a good time. This cycle that had lasted for more than ten years stalled for Musk this year.

This year, Musk's rocket company SpaceX completed 63% of the rocket launch missions in the United States. Tesla has sold nearly 1 million cars, and its market value exceeds the combined total of Toyota, Ford, General Motors and other automotive giants, making Musk the world's richest man.

In the fall of 2021, Isaacson observed, Musk was in an “uneasy lull.” Once, Musk flew to Mexico to attend his brother Kimball's party, but he did not relax. He shut himself in his room and spent most of the time playing games.

Musk suffered from stomach pains and sometimes vomiting due to mood swings and depression. Musk asked Isaacson to recommend a doctor to him. He didn't really need Isaacson to introduce the doctor, he wanted to talk to Isaacson more about the anxiety of having nothing to do.

From 2007 to 2020, Musk’s pain couldn’t stop. Like a sword hanging above his head, he must try his best to conjure a "rabbit" from the hat to block the sword above his head. "Do a trick, do another trick, and make a series of little rabbits flying in the air. If the next rabbit doesn't come out, you're dead."

In late 2021, Musk spoke to Isaacson about his inner anxieties after becoming the world's richest man.

By then Tesla and SpaceX were out of crisis. Musk began to miss the days of laying floors in factories. "He wasn't at peace if he didn't have to fight for his life," Isaacson said.

Isaacson wrote that in the months before his death, Jobs was communicating his ideas for products to Apple management. Restlessness is the hallmark of an innovator, but Isaacson learned that Musk was more than that.

Isaacson described Musk as a gamer addicted to drama. Even though I have passed the level, I feel restless and anxious to enter the next level or start a new game.

There are not enough challenges in reality to keep him fighting, so Musk deliberately creates dramatic events and puts the company into what he defines as a "crisis." Self-driving day, solar roof installation, Tesla mass production hell, these things could have been completed safely, but Musk likes to sound the alarm and force everyone to accompany him in "fire drills".

In early 2022, Isaacson witnessed another Musk-initiated fire drill—the acquisition of Twitter. Isaacson did not see a serious sense of mission in this matter. He believed that Musk bought Twitter because he regarded Twitter as a playground.

“At first, I tried to apply these grand missions from my original intention, but found that Twitter could not fit in, but I have gradually begun to believe that Twitter can be part of the mission of protecting human civilization before humans become a multi-planetary species. , to buy more time for human society." Musk defended himself.

A new cycle begins again, following a five-step process. Within half a year of acquiring Twitter, Musk laid off nearly 90% of his employees. This is the second step in five steps, simplifying and deleting the process.

At the end of the year, Musk began urging Tesla engineers to design a car without a steering wheel, accelerator, and rearview mirrors. "If we mess up, it's my fault, but we're going for broke."

**Is the grand and tragic sense of mission born of narcissism? **

At first, Isaacson thought the man’s stated missions of going to Mars and accelerating the energy transition were just words to inspire employees or blurt out. But Isaacson became convinced that Musk's belief was true and marveled, "This is unusual."

“I don’t think his sense of mission was driven by what’s called narcissism, or money,” Isaacson argued with a podcast interviewer.

Isaacson's narrative illustrates Musk's disregard for personal gain in running Tesla and SpaceX. His first wife Justine said, "Musk never talks about money. He feels that he can either be extremely rich or bankrupt. There is no third possibility. What really attracts him are the problems he wants to solve."

Isaacson described Musk this way on the eve of the founding of SpaceX in 2001: a 30-year-old who had already made $250 million through two entrepreneurial ventures, decided to build a rocket that could fly to Mars. He has a pure love for space science fiction novels and regards the plots in science fiction novels as his career. Most of his knowledge about rockets comes from information on NASA's official website and textbooks he just bought. Reed Hoffman, a former Paypal executive turned venture capitalist, simply couldn’t understand Musk’s behavior. He advised Musk that this matter was meaningless and that he would be the next fool to lose everything due to arrogance. But Musk believes he has to give it a try or humans will be trapped on Earth forever.

In 2008, Musk had to rely on personal credit to borrow money to get Tesla and SpaceX through the crisis. People around him advised him to choose between SpaceX and Tesla and concentrate their funds on one of them. Tesla and SpaceX represent two of his missions, and he refuses to give up on either.

In 2008, Musk was at SpaceX. Source: Visual China.

Musk has repeatedly explained to his friends the source of his sense of mission: technological progress is not inevitable, it requires many people to work tirelessly for it, and Musk must personally promote aerospace technology; colonizing Mars can protect human consciousness from being destroyed by nuclear war and climate change; Colonizing Mars could rekindle people's thirst for adventure, give people a goal worth pursuing, and make people really look forward to the coming of the new day.

At first, Musk just wanted to contribute to sending humans to Mars and donate to NASA. But when he searched NASA's official website, he got a frustrating message: NASA has no plans to go to Mars. Musk believes that unless he does it himself and builds rockets in a revolutionary way, there is no hope.

Isaacson believes that what is really special about Musk is that he has such a grand sense of mission, and he also believes so tragically and stubbornly that if he doesn’t do it, he will never achieve it. Without anyone’s consent, Musk decided to shoulder the fate of mankind.

After equating his career with the fate of mankind, Musk is hostile to anyone or anything that affects the advancement of his mission. He has shown a ruthless side to those who become his resistance. Accelerating human energy transformation is one of the grand missions. To this end, Musk violated regulations and allowed workers to work overtime at the risk of infection during the epidemic.

Isaacson's understanding deepened when he learned of Musk's entanglement with Bill Gates. Bill Gates once shorted Tesla, which made Musk hostile to Bill Gates. Musk complained to Isaacson: "He is so hypocritical. While saying that he cares about climate change, he expects to profit from shorting a new energy company." Later, Gates sent Musk a handwritten charity project letter to express his apology. But Musk didn’t buy it, “Are you still holding a $500 million short position on Tesla?”

When Musk makes reckless decisions that put the company in jeopardy or hurt those around him, Isaacson says Musk enters "demonic mode."

But Isaacson didn’t fully criticize Musk’s “demon model.” He quoted Musk's girlfriend at the time, Grimes, saying: "'Devil Mode' caused a lot of chaos, but it really helped him get the shit done." Isaacson cited Musk's mother to explain why he Lack of empathy, saying Musk has "Asperger's Syndrome". But Isaacson also said this statement has no empirical evidence.

The grand mission turns on the "demon mode" switch. Isaacson points out that it sometimes serves as an excuse for some of Musk's confusing behavior. Musk told Isaacson the truth. When he first bought Twitter, Musk tried to attach a grand sense of mission to the action, but he found that this did not hold up. But Musk gradually convinced himself that Twitter's mission is to eliminate misunderstandings between people as much as possible to delay the occurrence of war and continue human civilization.

Musk opened a bottle of wine in Twitter's conference room. Source: Isaacson’s social media.

Isaacson, who sincerely believed in Musk's sense of mission, did not help Musk "defend" on this point. When Isaacson wrote about Musk's acquisition of Twitter, he made a very heavy judgment that contradicted Musk's sense of mission narrative: Musk's starting point for buying Twitter was not a grand narrative of saving human civilization, but just because he liked it, " As we all know, Twitter is the world’s biggest playground,” Isaacson said.

Isaacson's Musk shows little remorse, and he can't help but feel annoyed that those less than qualified and inefficient employees are hindering his career and hindering the progress of human civilization. Musk didn’t hesitate when it came to firing them. “Totally stupid” was a phrase he used often, in fact he had been using it frequently since he was five years old.

There are too many missionaries in the world already, it’s better to be a storyteller

“Sometimes great innovators are kids who take risks and refuse to be disciplined. They can be reckless, awkward, and sometimes even cause crises, but maybe they’re also crazy—crazy enough to think they can actually do it. change the world."

Isaacson ended the book thus, but it was clear that critics were not satisfied with this chronicle. They thought his narrative style, which presented a large amount of detail in chronological order, was somewhat bland.

"It may seem mundane," Isaacson countered. "Open your Bible. It has the best opening sentence ever written, and it's 'In the beginning.'"

Critics also thought the writers were being too kind to Musk. They believed that Isaacson did not treat him as a powerful person - and wouldn't there be a greater danger in having so much power but acting impulsively, domineeringly and ruthlessly?

“Isaacson often overlooks the moments when Musk’s character flaws had greater consequences.” Vox book reviewer Constance Grady listed a list of times that Isaacson didn’t mention in the book but was directly or indirectly responsible for The casualties and data caused by Musk's disregard for the rules, "Because of his power, wealth, platform, and influence, Musk has repeatedly done some unique and counterintuitive things that have hurt many people."

For example, during the production hell in 2018, Musk asked assembly workers to work without protection to save Tesla, which was about to go bankrupt. At that time, Tesla's injury rate was 30% higher than other car companies. Isaacson only mentions this detail once in 600,000 words.

The Financial Times used an example to accuse Musk of hypocrisy - while Musk regarded himself as a climate savior, he sent a private plane across the United States to pick up a pet dog. Isaacson doesn't mention it in the book either.

This calls into question Isaacson and his narrative. Did he ignore this material intentionally or unintentionally? Is Isaacson doing justice to the public by being so kind to the subject of his biography? Isaacson has yet to respond to these very specific comments.

Isaacson's biography ended in April this year. But Musk’s story continues. SpaceX is still trying to launch Starship, a rocket that can send people to Mars; Tesla’s cheaper next-generation car aimed at driverless driving is being developed; Neuralink is recruiting volunteers Conducting human experiments on brain-computer interface devices; the newly established artificial intelligence company xAI is secretly developing large models that challenge OpenAI and Google.

What will happen next is difficult to predict. After all, in 2021, not only Isaacson, but even most people cannot predict that Musk will acquire Twitter. In just a few months, Musk once again refreshed people's understanding of him. He provoked billionaire Zuckerberg on social media and even set a place to duel with him. A farce.

This may be a trouble in writing a biography of Musk. Maybe Isaacson needs to add not only a chapter and an epilogue, but even a second half.

Musk is no longer just a genius engineer or innovator who created best-selling electric cars and reusable rockets. Now his emotions affect social media used by hundreds of millions of people, and can even affect a war. Musk’s radical attitude toward self-driving cars raises questions about whether he cares enough about the safety of ordinary people’s lives. Will Isaacson's inner demons in Musk spiral out of control?

Does a biographer have more responsibilities for a man who already wielded astonishing power than admiring his inventions, adventurous spirit, and explaining his inner demons and childhood shadows? At the very least, is it appropriate to compare such a person to a "child who refuses to potty train?"

After graduating from college, Isaacson worked for Time magazine for more than 20 years, from reporter to editor-in-chief, and believed in the principles of objective and neutral storytelling. After the publication of this biography, Isaacson had to constantly quote his teacher's words many years ago to explain why he was "just presenting."

His teacher was the novelist Walker Percy, who once told the young Isaacson: “There are two kinds of people in Louisiana (Isaacson’s home state): preachers and storytellers. It’s better to be a storyteller, there are too many missionaries in the world already.”