Today the long-awaited biography of Elon Musk goes on sale in Spain written by the renowned journalist Walter Isaacson, author of the most complete memoir about Steve Jobs and other biographies of famous people. In more than 700 pages, Isaacson recounts the lights and also many of the shadows of the richest, most famous and controversial businessman in the world. For more than two years, the author was Musk’s shadow. He accompanied him to work meetings, visited the factories of some of the six large companies that he leads and interviewed family, friends and enemies. The result is an intimate portrait of a visionary that generates admiration and rejection, but not in equal parts: there are many more people who hate or envy him than those who love him.
Much is already known about the life of Musk, who is only 52 years old. During the last decade he himself has shared his thoughts and plans with pleasure through social networks, which has made him the main protagonist of the media around the world. The biography written by Isaacson sheds light on many episodes of the magnate’s past, from a childhood in South Africa marked by his father’s abuse to the reasons that led him to buy Twitter (X) at a time when his other companies were benchmarks. in fields such as space exploration (Space X) or automotive (Tesla).
Some of the juiciest parts of the book tell their stories of meetings and disagreements with other business leaders, especially with Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, two of the people who preceded Musk at number 1 in the ranking of the richest in the world. His recent rivalry with Mark Zuckerberg, whom he challenged to a fight this summer, is outside the scope of this piece.
Isaacson explains in the book how and when the rivalry between Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos arose, which has lasted almost a decade. Currently, their litigation has reached the courts following the lawsuit by Bezos’ space company, Blue Origin, against NASA for awarding Space X the project to return to the moon. Isaacson says Bezos and Musk met in 2004. Musk invited Bezos to visit the SpaceX factory, and then got angry when Bezos didn’t return his invitation to visit Blue Origin. The founder of Amazon finally did it because Elon expressly asked him to.
During that visit to Blue Origin and at the subsequent dinner they shared with their respective wives – Musk, accompanied by his first wife, Justine; and Bezos, for his ex-wife MacKenzie- Musk offered several pieces of advice to his competitor. Among other things, he warned him that he was going down the wrong path with an idea related to his space plans: “Dude, we tried that and it turned out to be really stupid. “Don’t do that stupid thing.” The suggestion did not sit well with Bezos, who felt that Musk was “too sure of himself” at a time when he had yet to successfully launch a rocket.
According to Isaacson, the habit of telling other people how stupid their ideas are – especially their subordinates, including the managers of their companies – is one of the points in common between Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. Also his childhood devotion to science fiction literature. Both read Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein with devotion. Bezos, a Star Trek fan, witnessed the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, a moment he calls seminal in his life. His high school graduation speech was about colonizing planets and building space hotels, a preview of the space race in which he is currently competing against Elon Musk and another eccentric billionaire, Richard Branson (Virgin Galactic).
Both entrepreneurs share a vision: the use of reusable rockets to make space travel relatively affordable in the near future. What distinguishes them is their way of reaching that goal. Bezos, a very methodical man, focused on the development of sensors and software; Musk, whom Isaacson defines in several episodes as a person who moves by impulse, became obsessed with the physics behind propulsion to reach Earth orbit: he wanted very light rockets, and he wanted them on very tight deadlines. He believed that Bezos did not focus enough on engineering, which slowed down Blue Origin’s progress.
This space race is what fueled their feud. In 2011, SpaceX won NASA contracts to develop rockets for the International Space Station. When SpaceX won the right to lease launch pad 39A for 20 years – a huge facility located at the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida – Bezos sued NASA. Since then, the positions between both magnates are irreconcilable.
Finally, Bezos – and also Branson – successfully flew into space in 2021, an achievement that Musk praised but considered minor because they did not reach space orbit. The rivalry between these two space titans continues today, each with their unique approach to space exploration: Bezos’ method versus Musk’s outburst.