At the conclusion of this book I will have read all but one of Walter Isaacson’s biographies. The only remaining one is that of Henry Kissinger. These books are all 600+ pages, so they are quite the investment in time. I felt that all were fairly easy reads. Isaacson is quite adept at writing very captivating biographies that do their best to paint an accurate and interesting picture. It tells the story, warts-and-all. I do not feel that anything was written to placate the billionaire subjects in instances where they were the focus. (Musk is one, Steve Jobs was the other. ) Steve Jobs’ biography was written while he was alive and my review of it can be found in the November, 2019 page of this blog.
A year-or-so ago, I mentioned Musk in one of my meetings at work during a casual break. I did not realize that he was such a polarizing figure, at the time. It was pretty obvious I actually made some people uncomfortable by mentioning him. Much akin as to what might happen if I mentioned a former billionaire President. It seems like the love’em or hate’em mentality came into our culture along with social media. Musk can definitely be blunt and off-the-cuff at times, but I find it hard to believe that, at least in some peoples’ minds, it negates all his accomplishments. Someone this driven is going to have some sharp edges. If we value a person based on whether or not he or she made the world a better place than would have existed in his or her absence, then I feel pretty strongly that Elon Musk ends far on the plus side of that equation.
Before reading this book, I thought I knew most of what I was about to read. I did not. Elon Musk has his hands in many more ventures than I had realized. He founded OpenAI because he felt that AI might “get away” from humanity. Musk wanted to ensure that human consciousness was preserved and not usurped by AI. Preservation of human consciousness is also his motivation for SpaceX (more on that later). OpenAI was originally created as an open source alternative to AI that was being developed privately by huge companies. He felt that there needs to be some form of human conscience monitoring the application of AI that is not driven purely by profits and where a community can review its use and source code. Musk initially had intended to have a strong role in the non-profit company, but his attentions led him to his other endeavors, and OpenAI has since gone to a “capped” for-profit. Musk was not happy with this outcome. It was done without his consent by Sam Altman, OpenAI‘s CEO. Microsoft appears to have assumed a great deal of control over this entity. AI may enslave and/or eliminate humanity after all.
SpaceX was created to satisfy Musk’s desire to make human beings a multi-planetary species. This company earns it money largely by putting satellites into orbit for governments and private industries, but Musk has said that this is just a means to advance technology so that humans can some day travel to, and inhabit Mars. Again, this is to preserve human consciousness in the event Earth becomes uninhabitable. Most of the space travel in the world is now done through SpaceX, and by a large margin. NASA has basically handed off its duties to SpaceX. SpaceX operates for private corporations and even foreign governments. Musk’s motivations seem a little far-fetched at times, but everything he claims seems to come to fruition at some point. He may very well send people to Mars.
Musk seemed to be driven by the typical economic motivators early in his career, when he developed a company called Zip2 and X.com (not the company formerly known as Twitter), which morphed into Paypal. After basically being forced out of these companies that he created, he had a net worth of somewhere in the neighborhood of $200 million. At this point, he seemed unconcerned with acquiring additional wealth. His motivation turned to the preservation of human consciousness. Ironically, he has acquired most of his fortune since he quit pursuing money for money’s sake. He invested in Tesla when it was little more than an idea to make an electric version of a Lotus Elise. He gambled his fortune entirely on Tesla in the hopes of providing sustainable transportation for humanity. He later updated this motivation to include self-driving transportation. The company is worth more than half a trillion dollars at the moment. Full self-driving still has not happened for Tesla, but it now seems like it is inevitable. Waymo, although a Google, and not a Tesla product, is a driverless taxi service currently available in Phoenix. This is happening.
In addition to OpenAI, Tesla, and SpaceX, Musk also formed Nueralink. This company was also aimed at preserving human consciousness by creating direct interfaces between the human mind and machine. This is so we can “go along for the ride” AI is creating. One of the most interesting things they developed was an interface between a chimpanzee and a computer. A chimpanzee can play a game of pong with just his mind. Video here. Musk hopes to use this technology to help those with spinal cord injuries walk again by bypassing the spinal cord in the interface between the brain and legs.
Finally, there is Twitter. Elon saw social media being taken over by governments and private interests. Much of social media is currently controlled by the FBI, CIA, foreign governments (TikTok), and large corporations. They dictate the algorithms that decide what you see and determine who will see what you post (This has been well-documented). Musk sees this as damaging to humanity. I do too. Acquiring Twitter turned out to be much more time-consuming for him than he expected. Upon realizing what he had gotten into, he tried to back away from the deal. His lawyers advised him that he has to, “swallow the hairball.” He had legally committed to do so. The repercussions are still occurring with Musk recently being pulled into a lawsuit with the Brazilian government regarding Twitter‘s refusal to ban accounts the Brazilian government deems unworthy.
As stated earlier, this book is over 600 pages. I have left much out. I cannot condense 600 pages into 1199 words, but I hope this gives the reader some additional insight into Elon Musk. He clearly acts in ways that appear cold and inhumane at times. He regularly demands results from employees and ends his demands with terms to the effect of, “in the absence of these results, I will consider your resignation tendered.” Certainly not the norm for the modern workplace, but it is hard not to recognize his impact on the world. Musk is definitely a polarizing figure and his story and personality is very interesting. He seems to care most about people on a macro scale, rather than an individual one. This book was a fascinating read. It contains a great deal of personal and family history, which I have omitted here for brevity’s sake, but if I have piqued your interest, please give it a read.