Walter Isaacson has published a new biography about Elon Musk. In contrast to the Steve Jobs one, which came out shortly after Jobs’ death in 2011, this one is about a still-alive “Great Man of History” – a term I’m just assuming flits about Isaacson’s brain while he eats, sleeps, and (most importantly) decides what to work on. It’s not surprising that this book exists. If in 2011 you’d asked a techno-enthusiastic preteen who Isaacson should profile next, Musk would have been the likely response. Isaacson has written lauded biographies of Henry Kissinger, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Jobs. Sensing a theme? And now here we are with the Musk story and its attendant reviews, critiques, but – above all – fervor.
I’ve seen different types of responses to the book. Some bemoan the person Musk is revealed to be, highlighting the many personal transgressions Isaacson documents. Others critique the craft of the biographical work itself. Some say the book focuses on the wrong things. Even negative reviews, though, aren’t asking the most basic question: does the world really need a biography on Elon Musk? Seriously, what could possible be revealed about this man, who has spent the last decade in the public eye and the last couple of years at its very center? It seems like every other week we read articles about Elon Musk, his life, and his businesses.
The conversation about the book so far has revolved around whether Isaacson treated Musk appropriately. I take issue with the premise that we should be treating Musk at all. Isaacson seems to fancy himself the genius whisperer, but why are we buying into this outmoded conception of history in the first place? The Steve Jobs book did more than anything to promote a mythology of prickly, brilliant innovators who are simply better than the rest of us at creating the future. This powerful idea has had disastrous consequences, leading to a decade of an overly permissive regulatory environment, unfettered capital expenditure on useless technology, and a generalized fanboy mentality that excused people like Jobs, Musk, and Zuckerberg for their voracious monopolistic tendencies and terrible personalities.
Kara Swisher, ever ready to plunge into a Musk conversation, challenged Isaacson’s approach in an interview with the author. As someone who also knows Musk personally and has written a lot about him, her main charge is that Isaacson was overly objective, not stating an opinion on Musk as a person. (She seems to suspect Isaacson admires Musk but is afraid to say so in plain language.) But as someone who in her own podcast laments the amount of attention Musk gets, I wish she would ask Isaacson instead why he thinks Musk is worthy of the Great Man treatment. Swisher claims her emotional response to the book was “boredom,” but how bored can she really be if she’s so enthusiastically using her platform to debate and promote the thing? Instead of questioning his personal feelings about Elon Musk, we should be questioning the myopia of Isaacson’s historical perspective.
Aside from producing reports on people you learn about in 5th grade, Isaacson has enjoyed stints as the chairman and CEO of CNN, president of the Aspen Institute, and an advising partner at a financial services firm. So I guess the worldview reflected in his choice of writing material is not particularly surprising. Isaacson’s career in finance feels particularly relevant. With these books about the frontiersmen of the 21st century economy, he reveals an overly rosy and superficial understanding of the tech industry. Elon Musk is like a Greek siren to financial speculators – they simply cannot resist the strange name and sleek pedigree. Much like the wildly irrational Tesla valuation that has made Musk the richest man in the world, our fixation on these “innovators” is untethered from the nuts and bolts of historical progress.
I don’t think Isaacson’s work will age particularly well. We’ve come a long way since 2011, fortunately, and we now recognize that the problem with tech magnates is not their shitty egos but our own fawning obsession with their individuality as such. It distracts us from the larger forces responsible for how history is made, and how technology is produced. This excerpt from the New York Times review reveals a poignant moment: "Isaacson describes Musk stalking the factory floor of Tesla, his electric car company, issuing orders on the fly. ‘If I don’t make decisions,’ Musk explained, ‘we die.’” It’s time to call that bluff.