Walter Issacson: "[By the time] he was 3 ... he was [already] so intellectually curious."
Walter Issacson: "Compounding his social problems was his unwillingness to suffer politely those he considered fools. He used the word 'stupid' often."
Walter Issacson: "He was a very determined kid."
Kimbal Musk: "He has this fierce determination that blows your mind and was sometimes frightening and still is."
Walter Issacson: "Elon also had a tendency to be spacey and wander off on his own, oblivious to what others were doing."
Walter Issacson: “He didn't have the emotional receptors that produce everyday kindness and warmth and a desire to be liked. He was not hardwired to have empathy. Or, to put it in less technical terms, he could be an asshole."
Walter Issacson: "[As a child] Elon developed into a night person, staying up until dawn reading books."
Walter Issacson: "Elon developed a reputation for being the most fearless [out of the cousins]. When the cousins went to a movie and people were making noise, he would be the one to go over and tell them to be quiet, even if they were much bigger. ... He was also the most competitive of the cousins."
Walter Issacson: "Reading remained Musk’s psychological retreat. Sometimes he would immerse himself in books all afternoon and most of the night, nine hours at a stretch. When the family went to someone’s house, he would disappear into their host’s library. When they went into town, he would wander off and later be found at a bookstore, sitting on the floor, in his own world."
Walter Issacson: "The single-minded passion of the superheroes impressed him."
Walter Issacson: "Musk read both sets of his father’s encyclopedias and became, to his doting mother and sister, a 'genius boy.' To other kids, however, he was an annoying nerd. 'Look at the moon, it must be a million miles away,' a cousin once exclaimed. Replied Elon, 'No, it’s like 239,000 miles, depending on the orbit.'"
Walter Issacson: "When he reached his teens, it began to gnaw at him that something was missing. Both the religious and the scientific explanations of existence, he says, did not address the really big questions, such as Where did the universe come from, and why does it exist? Physics could teach everything about the universe except why. That led to what he calls his adolescent existential crisis. 'I began trying to figure out what the meaning of life and the universe was,' he says. 'And I got real depressed about it, like maybe life may have no meaning.' Like a good bookworm, he addressed these questions through reading ... existential philosophers, such as Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Schopenhauer."
Walter Isaacson: "He was more interested in late-night philosophy discussions about the meaning of life. 'I was really hungry for that,' he says, 'because until then I had no friends I could talk to about these things.' But most of all, he became immersed, with Mr. Farooq at his side, in the world of board and computer games."
Walter Isaacson: "At college he became more focused on the [video game] genre known as strategy games, ones that involve two or more players competing to build an empire using high-level strategy, resource management, supply-chain logistics, and tactical thinking. Strategy games—those played on a board and then those for computers—would become central to Musk’s life. From The Ancient Art of War, which he played as a teen in South Africa, to his addiction to The Battle of Polytopia three decades later, he relished the complex planning and competitive management of resources that are required to prevail. Immersing himself in these games for hours became the way he relaxed, escaped stress, and honed his tactical skills and strategic thinking for business."
Walter Isaacson: "He never got fully immersed in [parties]. 'I was stone cold sober at the time,' he says. 'Adeo would get wasted. I’d be banging on his door and say, like, 'Dude, you’ve got to come up and manage the party.'' I ended up being the one who had to keep an eye on things.' Ressi later marveled that Musk usually seemed a bit detached. 'He enjoyed being around a party but not fully in it. The only thing he binged on was video games.' Despite all of their partying, he understood that Musk was fundamentally alienated and withdrawn, like an observer from a different planet trying to learn the motions of sociability. 'I wish Elon knew how to be a little happier,' he says."
Walter Isaacson: "He had a fanatic love of video games and the skills to make money creating them, but that was not the best way to spend his life. 'I wanted to have more impact,' he says."
Walter Isaacson: "From the very beginning of his career, Musk was a demanding manager, contemptuous of the concept of work-life balance. At Zip2 and every subsequent company, he drove himself relentlessly all day and through much of the night, without vacations, and he expected others to do the same. His only indulgence was allowing breaks for intense video-game binges."
Walter Isaacson: "With his weak empathy gene, he didn’t realize or care that correcting someone publicly—or, as he put it, 'fixing their fucking stupid code'—was not a path to endearment. He had never been a captain of a sports team or the leader of a gang of friends, and he lacked an instinct for camaraderie. Like Steve Jobs, he genuinely did not care if he offended or intimidated the people he worked with, as long as he drove them to accomplish feats they thought were impossible. 'It’s not your job to make people on your team love you,' he said at a SpaceX executive session years later. 'In fact, that’s counterproductive.'"
Walter Isaacson: "Elon at age twenty-seven walked away with $22 million ... Elon bought an eighteen-hundred-square-foot condo and splurged on what for him was the ultimate indulgence: a $1 million McLaren F1 sports car, the fastest production car in existence. ... After the impulsive outburst, he realized that the giddy display of his newfound taste for wealth was unseemly. 'Some could interpret the purchase of this car as behavior characteristic of an imperialist brat,' he admitted. 'My values may have changed, but I’m not consciously aware of my values having changed.' Had they changed? His new wealth allowed his desires and impulses to be subject to fewer restraints, which was not always a pretty sight. But his earnest, mission-driven intensity remained intact."
Justine Musk: “He’s not a man who takes no for an answer.”
Elon Musk (asking out Justine Musk, then Justine Wilson): "You have a fire in your soul. I see myself in you."
Walter Isaacson: "[Justine Musk, then Justine Wilson,] was impressed by his aspirations. 'Unlike other ambitious people, he never talked about making money,' she says. 'He assumed that he would be either wealthy or broke, but nothing in between. What interested him were the problems he wanted to solve.' His indomitable will—whether for making her date him or for building electric cars—mesmerized her. 'Even when it seemed like crazy talk, you would believe him because he believed it.'"
Justine Musk: “For somebody who was so amorous about me, he never hesitated to let me know that I was wrong about something, ... and I would fight back. I realized that I could say anything to him, and it just did not faze him.”
Walter Isaacson: "On a trip to Paris, they went to see the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries at the Musée de Cluny. Justine began describing what moved her, and she gave a spiritual interpretation involving the unicorn as a Christ-like figure. Musk called that 'stupid.' They began arguing furiously about Christian symbolism. 'He was just so adamant and furious that I didn’t know what I was talking about, that I was stupid and crazy,' she says."
Walter Issacson: "Compounding his social problems was his unwillingness to suffer politely those he considered fools. He used the word 'stupid' often."
Walter Issacson: "He was a very determined kid."
Kimbal Musk: "He has this fierce determination that blows your mind and was sometimes frightening and still is."
Walter Issacson: "Elon also had a tendency to be spacey and wander off on his own, oblivious to what others were doing."
Walter Issacson: “He didn't have the emotional receptors that produce everyday kindness and warmth and a desire to be liked. He was not hardwired to have empathy. Or, to put it in less technical terms, he could be an asshole."
Walter Issacson: "[As a child] Elon developed into a night person, staying up until dawn reading books."
Walter Issacson: "Elon developed a reputation for being the most fearless [out of the cousins]. When the cousins went to a movie and people were making noise, he would be the one to go over and tell them to be quiet, even if they were much bigger. ... He was also the most competitive of the cousins."
Walter Issacson: "Reading remained Musk’s psychological retreat. Sometimes he would immerse himself in books all afternoon and most of the night, nine hours at a stretch. When the family went to someone’s house, he would disappear into their host’s library. When they went into town, he would wander off and later be found at a bookstore, sitting on the floor, in his own world."
Walter Issacson: "The single-minded passion of the superheroes impressed him."
Walter Issacson: "Musk read both sets of his father’s encyclopedias and became, to his doting mother and sister, a 'genius boy.' To other kids, however, he was an annoying nerd. 'Look at the moon, it must be a million miles away,' a cousin once exclaimed. Replied Elon, 'No, it’s like 239,000 miles, depending on the orbit.'"
Walter Issacson: "When he reached his teens, it began to gnaw at him that something was missing. Both the religious and the scientific explanations of existence, he says, did not address the really big questions, such as Where did the universe come from, and why does it exist? Physics could teach everything about the universe except why. That led to what he calls his adolescent existential crisis. 'I began trying to figure out what the meaning of life and the universe was,' he says. 'And I got real depressed about it, like maybe life may have no meaning.' Like a good bookworm, he addressed these questions through reading ... existential philosophers, such as Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Schopenhauer."
Walter Isaacson: "He was more interested in late-night philosophy discussions about the meaning of life. 'I was really hungry for that,' he says, 'because until then I had no friends I could talk to about these things.' But most of all, he became immersed, with Mr. Farooq at his side, in the world of board and computer games."
Walter Isaacson: "At college he became more focused on the [video game] genre known as strategy games, ones that involve two or more players competing to build an empire using high-level strategy, resource management, supply-chain logistics, and tactical thinking. Strategy games—those played on a board and then those for computers—would become central to Musk’s life. From The Ancient Art of War, which he played as a teen in South Africa, to his addiction to The Battle of Polytopia three decades later, he relished the complex planning and competitive management of resources that are required to prevail. Immersing himself in these games for hours became the way he relaxed, escaped stress, and honed his tactical skills and strategic thinking for business."
Walter Isaacson: "He never got fully immersed in [parties]. 'I was stone cold sober at the time,' he says. 'Adeo would get wasted. I’d be banging on his door and say, like, 'Dude, you’ve got to come up and manage the party.'' I ended up being the one who had to keep an eye on things.' Ressi later marveled that Musk usually seemed a bit detached. 'He enjoyed being around a party but not fully in it. The only thing he binged on was video games.' Despite all of their partying, he understood that Musk was fundamentally alienated and withdrawn, like an observer from a different planet trying to learn the motions of sociability. 'I wish Elon knew how to be a little happier,' he says."
Walter Isaacson: "He had a fanatic love of video games and the skills to make money creating them, but that was not the best way to spend his life. 'I wanted to have more impact,' he says."
Walter Isaacson: "From the very beginning of his career, Musk was a demanding manager, contemptuous of the concept of work-life balance. At Zip2 and every subsequent company, he drove himself relentlessly all day and through much of the night, without vacations, and he expected others to do the same. His only indulgence was allowing breaks for intense video-game binges."
Walter Isaacson: "With his weak empathy gene, he didn’t realize or care that correcting someone publicly—or, as he put it, 'fixing their fucking stupid code'—was not a path to endearment. He had never been a captain of a sports team or the leader of a gang of friends, and he lacked an instinct for camaraderie. Like Steve Jobs, he genuinely did not care if he offended or intimidated the people he worked with, as long as he drove them to accomplish feats they thought were impossible. 'It’s not your job to make people on your team love you,' he said at a SpaceX executive session years later. 'In fact, that’s counterproductive.'"
Walter Isaacson: "Elon at age twenty-seven walked away with $22 million ... Elon bought an eighteen-hundred-square-foot condo and splurged on what for him was the ultimate indulgence: a $1 million McLaren F1 sports car, the fastest production car in existence. ... After the impulsive outburst, he realized that the giddy display of his newfound taste for wealth was unseemly. 'Some could interpret the purchase of this car as behavior characteristic of an imperialist brat,' he admitted. 'My values may have changed, but I’m not consciously aware of my values having changed.' Had they changed? His new wealth allowed his desires and impulses to be subject to fewer restraints, which was not always a pretty sight. But his earnest, mission-driven intensity remained intact."
Justine Musk: “He’s not a man who takes no for an answer.”
Elon Musk (asking out Justine Musk, then Justine Wilson): "You have a fire in your soul. I see myself in you."
Walter Isaacson: "[Justine Musk, then Justine Wilson,] was impressed by his aspirations. 'Unlike other ambitious people, he never talked about making money,' she says. 'He assumed that he would be either wealthy or broke, but nothing in between. What interested him were the problems he wanted to solve.' His indomitable will—whether for making her date him or for building electric cars—mesmerized her. 'Even when it seemed like crazy talk, you would believe him because he believed it.'"
Justine Musk: “For somebody who was so amorous about me, he never hesitated to let me know that I was wrong about something, ... and I would fight back. I realized that I could say anything to him, and it just did not faze him.”
Walter Isaacson: "On a trip to Paris, they went to see the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries at the Musée de Cluny. Justine began describing what moved her, and she gave a spiritual interpretation involving the unicorn as a Christ-like figure. Musk called that 'stupid.' They began arguing furiously about Christian symbolism. 'He was just so adamant and furious that I didn’t know what I was talking about, that I was stupid and crazy,' she says."
