From the author of Steve Jobs and other bestselling biographies, this is the astonishingly intimate story of the most fascinating and controversial innovator of our era--a rule-breaking visionary who helped to lead the world into the era of electric vehicles, private space exploration, and artificial intelligence. Oh, and took over Twitter. When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist.
His father's impact on his psyche would linger. He developed into a tough yet vulnerable man-child, prone to abrupt Jekyll-and-Hyde mood swings, with an exceedingly high tolerance for risk, a craving for drama, an epic sense of mission, and a maniacal intensity that was callous and at times destructive.
At the beginning of 2022--after a year marked by SpaceX launching thirty-one rockets into orbit, Tesla selling a million cars, and him becoming the richest man on earth--Musk spoke ruefully about his compulsion to stir up dramas. "I need to shift my mindset away from being in crisis mode, which it has been for about fourteen years now, or arguably most of my life," he said.
It was a wistful comment, not a New Year's resolution. Even as he said it, he was secretly buying up shares of Twitter, the world's ultimate playground. Over the years, whenever he was in a dark place, his mind went back to being bullied on the playground. Now he had the chance to own the playground.
For two years, Isaacson shadowed Musk, attended his meetings, walked his factories with him, and spent hours interviewing him, his family, friends, coworkers, and adversaries. The result is the revealing inside story, filled with amazing tales of triumphs and turmoil, that addresses the question: are the demons that drive Musk also what it takes to drive innovation and progress?
這是一本由《史蒂夫·喬布斯》等暢銷傳記的作者所撰寫的令人驚嘆的親密故事，講述了我們這個時代最迷人且具爭議性的創新者的故事。這位打破規則的願景領袖幫助引領世界進入電動車、私人太空探索和人工智能時代。噢，還接管了Twitter。
當埃隆·馬斯克還是南非的一個孩子時，他經常被欺負。有一天，一群人把他推下混凝土梯級，踢他到臉部腫成一團。他在醫院住了一個星期。但與他的父親所造成的情感傷痕相比，身體上的傷痕微不足道。他的父親是一位工程師、流氓和有魅力的幻想家，對他的心靈產生了深遠的影響。
他的父親對他的心理影響一直持續著。他成長為一個堅強但脆弱的男孩，容易突然情緒波動，對風險有極高的容忍度，渴望戲劇，擁有史詩般的使命感，以及冷酷且有時具破壞性的瘋狂強度。
在2022年初，經過一年的SpaceX發射31枚火箭進入軌道、特斯拉銷售100萬輛汽車，以及成為地球上最富有的人，馬斯克對自己激起戲劇的衝動感到後悔。他說：“我需要改變我的心態，遠離危機模式，這種模式已經持續了大約十四年，或者可以說是我一生的大部分時間。”
這是一個略帶感傷的評論，而不是新年的決心。即使他這樣說，他仍暗中收購Twitter的股份，這是世界上最終的遊樂場。多年來，每當他陷入困境時，他的思緒都回到在操場上被欺負的時光。現在他有機會擁有這個遊樂場。
兩年來，艾薩克森一直跟隨馬斯克，參加他的會議，與他一起參觀他的工廠，並花了幾個小時訪問他、他的家人、朋友、同事和對手。結果是這個揭示性的內幕故事，充滿了驚人的勝利和動盪的故事，回答了一個問題：是什麼驅使馬斯克的內心魔鬼也是推動創新和進步所需要的嗎？
Walter Isaacson is the bestselling author of biographies of Jennifer Doudna, Leonardo da Vinci, Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, and Albert Einstein. He is a professor of history at Tulane and was CEO of the Aspen Institute, chair of CNN, and editor of Time. He was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2023. Visit him at Isaacson.Tulane.edu.
