Walter Isaacson's new 688-page biography, "Elon Musk," begins with a simple quote from Musk's time hosting "Saturday Night Live":
"To anyone I've offended, I just want to say: I reinvented electric cars and I'm sending people to Mars in a rocket ship. Did you think I was also going to be a chill, normal dude?"
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The tech titan who doubles as the world's richest man turned Tesla (TSLA) -) into the dominant player in the electric-vehicle sector, making billions along the way. And he turned SpaceX into the dominant player in the aerospace field, responsible for the recent spike in rocket launches.
Isaacson ends his biography with a series of questions, revolving around the same concept: "Would a restrained Musk have accomplished as much as a Musk unbound?"
The simple answer, Isaacson told CNBC, is no. Musk without his demons isn't Musk at all.
"He has these enraging qualities, these drives and these demons, but if you pull those out you don't have the impulsive character who sets things off," Isaacson said. "We have become a nation more of referees than risk takers, more of people who try to regulate than people willing to be adventuresome."
Isaacson said that Musk was responsible for the country's current space-faring ability and that he's equally responsible for the current push toward electric vehicles.
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'If things are calm, Musk wants to stir it up': Bio
"This does not excuse bad behavior, but if you don't have the whole cloth of Elon Musk, you're not going to get the innovation," Isaacson said.
"Elon Musk has an affection for things that are thrilling and dramatic. If things are calm, he wants to stir it up," Isaacson added.
Musk came under fire this week when a new excerpt from Isaacson's book revealed that the Ukrainian government asked him to activate Starlink satellites in the Crimea region in 2022. Musk refused.
"If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation," Musk said.
Reacting to the revelation of Musk's role in the war between Ukraine and Russia, one X user said: "It's incredibly disturbing that one insanely wealthy individual has the power to meddle in affairs like this."
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