Is the content of "Musk Biography" credible? Biographers label everyone in their pen a genius

Focus

• 1

  In his new book, Elon Musk, Isaacson describes Musk as a genius, but in fact many of his claims lack evidence.

• 2

  Isaacson has developed a fixed pattern of writing biographies of important people, and he is now in the position of a kind of "kingmaker". To keep that mold, he labeled everyone he described as a genius.

• 3

  Regarding Musk's founding of Zip2, the subsidies Tesla received, the brain-computer interface company Neuralink, and racial issues, Isaacson chose to brush it off.

• 4

  Both of Musk's ex-wives have been disparaged in biographies, and they may have signed some sort of nondisclosure agreement.

• 5

  Musk thinks everyone around him is something to throw away. They are like tools, when the tool appears to wear out, replace it with a new one.

Long before Walter Isaacson's new book, Elon Musk, was published, the trouble seemed to have begun.

CNN commented on an excerpt from the biography, saying Musk shut down Starlink, SpaceX's satellite network, to prevent a "Ukrainian sneak attack" on the Russian Navy. The Washington Post later published an excerpt from the article, in which Isaacson claimed that Musk had actually stopped a military offensive on a personal whim.

For many, it is necessary to determine the source of this passage. After all, one thing anyone who has been following Musk for a long time must be aware of that he likes to tell funny lies. For example:

1. Tesla privatization? In 2018, Musk claimed to take Tesla private and "the money is in place", but in fact, this is not true at all.

2. No longer sell Tesla shares? In April 2022, Musk sold a large amount of Tesla stock and said there were no plans to sell more shares. However, he then sold shares in large quantities again in August 2022, although at the time he said that he had completed the sale of Tesla shares. In November 2022, he sold more shares.

3. Tesla and Bitcoin? Remember what Musk said, "I may shoot, but I won't sell." Tesla then sold 75 percent of the bitcoin.

4. Faking a 2016 Autopilot demo video? Tesla's head of Autopilot software said in his testimony that in the demonstration video, although the title of the video was "Self-Driving Cars," the experimental car was not actually autonomous, and Musk himself knew about it in advance.

5. Will Tesla's battery be replaceable? Electric cars only need to replace the battery, which is much faster than refueling.

6. Could Tesla cars fly? Musk has really said that he wants to replace the back seat of a car with a thruster, and journalists have spent a lot of time trying to figure out what that means.

After following Musk's words and actions for a while, you will find that his self-proclaimed statements are often far from becoming reality. Musk prophesied a lot of things, some of which are rhetorical, and some of which are simply not true.

Isaacson delves into the protagonist in this 670-page biography, and the problem is that this person is Musk. He promised in 2011 to send us into space within three years, but in reality, SpaceX's first astronauts didn't get into orbit until nearly a decade later. Of course, the appeal of this biography is to get more insider information, but access to information also gives Musk many opportunities to sell his myths.

Preparations were not done enough, and Isaacson issued a correction

When we open Musk's biography, we all wonder if Isaacson has done his homework ahead of time. The first thing I did was flip to the back, where the author listed sources for the Ukraine incident, including interviews with Musk, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, and Musk's bodyguard, Jared Birchall, SpaceX's director of operations Lauren Dreyer, and Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov), all "provided by Musk." Other sources are news reports, one of which is about SpaceX's restrictions on the use of drones in Ukraine. However, the point is that the article does not mention Ukrainian submarines. Rather, it is mainly about flying machines.

Isaacson writes in the book: "From night until late at night, Musk was personally in control of the situation. He concluded that allowing Starlink attacks could spell disaster for the world. So he secretly told his engineers to turn off the signal coverage within 100 kilometers of the Crimean coast. As a result, when Ukrainian unmanned submarines approached the Russian fleet in Sevastopol, they lost network connection support and were washed ashore without causing any damage. ”

That last sentence is catchy, isn't it? I can find no evidence to support this view in any of the news articles listed by Isaacson as sources for this chapter. A report in the Financial Times confirmed several interruptions in Starlink during Ukraine's confrontation with Russia, but did not mention the unmanned submarine washed ashore. A New York Times article confirmed that Musk did not want Starlink to support drones, but also did not mention unmanned submarines.

What are the possible sources of this passage? In the next paragraph, Isaacson quoted a text message from Fedorov who "secretly shared with him Musk details that are crucial for Ukrainians from unmanned submarines." I guess it's no secret now.

Musk refuted Isaacson's claims on Twitter: "SpaceX has not deactivated anything, the government urgently requested the activation of Starlink to Sevastopol, and if I acceded to their request, then SpaceX will clearly be complicit in a major act of war and escalation of the conflict." But Musk did not specify which government.

Isaacson immediately relented, replying: "To clarify the Starlink problem: Ukrainians thought that Starlink's signal could cover all the way to the Crimea, but this is not the case. They asked Musk to activate Starlink for their unmanned submarine attack on the Russian fleet. But Musk didn't activate it because, he thought, it could trigger a large-scale war. ”

The statement confuses what is happening: Is Isaacson saying his book is wrong? Of course, this is what he meant, because "future versions will correct it with updates". But in any case, the Washington Post corrected its excerpt. "What Ukrainians do you think", which Ukrainians do you mean, and how did Isaacson know what they think?

Among the sources listed by Isaacson, we see only one text message from a Ukrainian who, for diplomatic purposes, may have withheld the truth as he knew. "They asked Musk to enable Starlink for their unmanned attack," which is a complete departure from the narrative given in the book, which says Musk closed existing coverage rather than approving an expanded coverage. What could be the source here? Of course, the last sentence - "Musk did not enable it because he believes that it could lead to a major war" - seems to be a slap in the air.

Two unreliable narrators: Isaacson and Musk himself

Isaacson further "clarified" in another tweet. He tweeted: "Based on my conversations with Musk, I mistakenly believe that the policy of not allowing Starlink to attack Crimea was decided on the night of Ukraine's attempt to sneak attack. But Musk said the policy had been implemented earlier, but Ukrainians didn't know it, and he just reiterated it that night. ”

One way to find out the truth is to interview more sources, including those of the Ukrainian and US military. But Isaacson didn't choose to do that, and Musk's words were good enough for him. So when Musk disputed that description, Isaacson immediately reversed his position.

We focus on this section primarily because it highlights a major issue with Isaacson's biography. We are faced with not one, but two unreliable narrators: Musk and Isaacson himself. After all, just before the clarification statement, Isaacson was touring SpaceX's factory with CBS's David Pogue and promoting his new book.

Isaacson wrote a special kind of biography. He even wrote more biographies of geniuses, including Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, and the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

Isaacson has developed a fixed pattern of writing biographies of important people, and he is now in the position of a kind of "kingmaker". To keep that mold, he labeled everyone he described as a genius.

One way to keep Musk's myth intact is not to check the facts. In the first three paragraphs of the biography, Isaacson describes a wilderness survival camp Musk attended, where "every few years, a child dies." That's an amazing description! If you look at the notes section to see if Isaacson interviewed Musk's classmates, he didn't, and there were no news reports to back up that claim. So what exactly is the source? Presumably, it could be one or more members of the Musk family.

Arguably, the entire Musk family is interested in portraying Musk as an unusually tough guy and using his difficult childhood as an excuse for his continued bad behavior. As a result, some strange choices emerged.

Isaacson writes, "If someone falsely implies that his success is due to inheritance of wealth, or claims that he is not worthy to be called the founder of the company he helped start, he will be furious." Isaacson earlier detailed Musk's father, Errol Musk, who gave Musk and his brother Kimbal Musk "$28,000, plus a broken car he bought for $500" to help them start Zip2. Musk's mother, Maye, also donated $10,000 "to let them use her credit card because their own hasn't been approved yet." Of course, Musk started with family funds, and the question is about the meaning of "inheriting wealth."

Over the years, Bezos has received a lot of government subsidies, and Bezos is envious

This is another strange option. Isaacs wrote: "For many years, one criticism of Tesla was that the company received a 'bailout' or 'subsidy' from the government in 2009. "That's not entirely true. For years, Tesla has been criticized for receiving massive amounts of aid from state, federal, and local governments, sometimes cheating them in the process, as evidenced by the Buffalo Gigafactory. Tesla alone is estimated to have received more than $3 billion in loans and subsidies from state and local governments. While Isaacson detailed the $465 million loan Tesla received from the U.S. Department of Energy, he skipped all the other help Musk has received over the years that has made the likes of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos jealous.

Then there's a description of Musk's brain implant company, Neuralink: "Neuralink's ideas are inspired by science fiction, especially Iain Banks' space brigade 'Culture' novel." Perhaps, but there's a real scientific fact: brain-computer interfaces were implanted in humans back in 2006, and Isaacson didn't mention that. The idea, of course, was not come up with by Musk, because the concept of brain-computer interfaces already existed. Isaacson also did not mention the horrific allegations against Neuralink test subjects.

But I'd say the really big problem: Musk's politics. This is a recurring theme for Isaacson, whose views are puzzling.

Musk's reliance on taxpayer funding plays a role here, and he often donates in ways that benefit him in Texas, where he has a large amount of business. So when Musk has donated more than $1 million to politicians over the past 20 years, it's strange to write "Musk has never cared much about politics."

Now, I personally think Musk is a political nihilist who is willing to say whatever they want to hear in order to get taxpayer money. But there's no denying that he spent decades befriending liberals and the far right, most notably Peter Thiel and David Sacks.

These long-standing right-wing relationships obscure Isaacson's argument that the real reason Musk's switch to the right is his daughter, Jenna. I found these parts of the book difficult to read because they essentially amount to the victim's blame. According to Isaacson, "Jenna's anger has made Musk very sensitive to the billionaire backlash." In 2020, she stopped talking to her father and completed the transition without telling him.

When Musk tweeted in 2020 about "eating the red pill," Isaacson noted that the phrase was referring to The Matrix, but he didn't add that The Matrix was a film made by two people who later became transgender. In fact, The Matrix itself is a transgender story. In the 90s, prescription estrogen was a red pill. It's a bit of a hassle for a biographer trying to write a biography of a great man.

Similarly, Isaacson ignored the issue of race, and he did not mention the segregation Musk encountered in his youth. It's a strange omission, because Musk's maternal grandfather, Joshua Haldeman, was chairman of the openly anti-Semitic Social Credit Party's National Committee. Isaacson described Holdman's beliefs as "outlandish conservative populist views," which led him to emigrate to Pretoria, South Africa, which was ruled by the apartheid regime.

Both ex-wives were belittled

Another thing Isaacson didn't mention is that Tesla's Fremont factory allegedly had problems with racial discrimination. Recently, a former Tesla employee received millions of dollars in compensation for racial discrimination at work, which appears to be related to Musk's political stance.

Also relevant: How did Isaacson treat Musk's ex-wife? Both Justine Musk and Amber Heard have been disparaged. For Justin, Musk's mother once said "she has nothing to offer," and Musk's brother, sometimes business partner, Kimball, said, "This person is not for you." We didn't hear what Justin said, which makes me wonder: Does Justin have a nondisclosure agreement? Did she sign agreements with non-derogatory clauses, as Tesla founder Martin Eberhard did? Isaacson talked to her, why did she have nothing to say?

Similarly, Kimball described Amber Heard as "too poisonous," Grimes described her as a "chaotic demon," and Musk's chief of staff as "the Joker in Batman who takes pleasure in destroying everything." Heard has even been blamed for Musk's misconduct, including a "financing guarantee" in 2018. Even so, Hield's response was low-key enough, saying, "I love him so much." Musk likes to play with fire, and sometimes fire burns him. ”。 We can't help but wonder if she was also asked to keep it secret.

We know of one person under a nondisclosure agreement: a flight attendant who said Musk had proposed to her in 2016. We also know that five women at SpaceX said that sexual harassment is common at the company. Women at Tesla said they had suffered "nightmarish" sexual harassment. But Isaacson wasn't particularly interested.

In general, employees of Musk's company are not very interested in his biographer. Isaacson began to describe the production hell of Fremont in 2018 from Musk's perspective: "Musk has realized that designing a good factory is like designing a good microchip." During the surge in production, Musk began walking around the workshop, yelling at workers and "rushing to make decisions." Security sensors, he argued, are "too sensitive to alarm even if there is no real problem."

In this chapter, Isaacson cites some regular employees who complain that they are forced to take shortcuts and work 10-hour days. Isaacson wrote: "There is some truth in these complaints, Tesla's injury rate is 30% higher than other companies in the industry. Putting aside the obvious "some truths," there is a very obvious question that Isaacson has had the opportunity to explore: How does Musk's intervention in safety sensors, empirical corrections to the manufacturing process, and the general "production hell" affect injury rates? But he didn't choose not to. The Tesla workers' injuries were not mentioned further.

Isaacson did have a lot of time to compare Steve Jobs, but after a while, it felt like it was an ad placement for another of his books. In the index, Jobs is listed on 20 pages. Looking at the index alone, you would understandably think that Jobs was an important factor in Musk's rise.

We might conclude that Musk thinks everyone around him is something to throw away. In this biography, Musk repeatedly mentions that he fired employees on the spot, demanding that he do things his way, and that even the slightest objection cannot be tolerated for even stupid and expensive things. Jon McNeill, a former president of Tesla, said: "When Musk is upset, he lashes out, usually against junior people."

"Anyone can be abandoned"

"It's good that you definitely realize that you're just a tool being used to achieve something bigger," said Lucas Hughes, a former financial analyst at SpaceX and one of Musk-bashing junior employees. "But sometimes the tool wears out and he feels like he can replace that tool." Musk believes that "when people want to prioritize comfort and leisure, they should leave," Isaacson wrote.

The later chapters are not very enlightening. Isaacson is deeply convinced of Musk's vision of artificial intelligence and Tesla robots. The biographer fully believed Musk's hype. But I remember the days of "alien dreadnoughts," where the promise of replaceable batteries never came true, and countless other things Musk said, all seemed like rhetoric. For 10 years, Musk cut off internet access in Ukraine in a battle, and it may not be the most embarrassing thing Isaacson has done on that page.

Isaacson ends the book seriously considering whether Musk's accomplishments would have been possible without Musk's bad behavior: "Can a constrained and unfettered Musk achieve as much?" Is not being constrained an integral part of him? Can you get the rocket into orbit or transition to an electric car without accepting his shortcomings? Sometimes great innovators are like adventurous big kids who resist childish training. ”

In my opinion, this is a set of wrong questions. Here are some other questions: Would Musk be better off if he were more receptive to criticism? If Musk cared more about the team around him, what else could he achieve now? Is the harm Musk inflicted on employees worth it to fulfill his specific vision of the world? Do we really want this person's vision for the future?

While Isaacson managed to detail why Musk had gone wrong, he didn't seem to realize what made Musk an inspiring figure for so long. Musk is a visionary, the kind of person who envisions a civilization on Mars. That's what people have always loved: to dream big and think about new possible worlds. This is also the reason why Musk has changed his political position. The illusions of the conservative movement are small and sad, with nothing new to explore. (Text/Golden Deer)