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Are you still tweeting or are you already correcting? Ever since American entrepreneur Elon Musk (52) took over the microblogging service Twitter at the end of October 2022 and renamed it X at the end of July 2023, we users have been at a loss. Even the correction program is overloaded and suggests “fixen” or “mixen” instead of “ixen” in this text. What kind of person is this who blithely wants to change the habits of millions of people around the world?
“He has this grim determination that is amazing and sometimes scary,” says Kimbal Musk, 51, of his older brother Elon. “This is still the case today.” The quote is taken from Walter Isaacson’s long-awaited and recently published biography of Musk (71). The American author, former Time magazine chief of staff and former CNN CEO studied the lives of Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), Albert Einstein (1879–1955) and Steve Jobs (1955–2011), who made their names.
An all-around genius, physics god and tech giant, it speaks volumes of his ego when Musk puts himself in the series and personally asks Isaacson as a biographer. For two years, Musk allowed the star writer to be around him, taking him to meetings and giving him numerous interviews. Despite this closeness, the book is not a tribute, but rather a critical examination of the dark side, as Isaacson also conducted many conversations with Musk’s relatives and acquaintances, with his friends and enemies.
The first enemy is Father Errol (77), with whom Elon and his brother Kimbal no longer speak. “Errol proudly admits that he maintained an “extremely strict autocracy” with his boys,” Isaacson writes. “And he adds that “Elon later imposed the same strict autocracy on himself and others.” Irony of fate: Jenna (19 years old), a transsexual daughter from Elon Musk’s first marriage and one of his eleven children, broke up with her father.
An outsider growing up in South Africa, Elon craved company in his adopted home in the US and developed into a party animal. But his character often interferes with social contacts. “Musk’s emotional state fluctuates between hard-hearted, needy and violent,” Isaacson says. One of the most common words Musk’s biographer quotes in the book is “stupid” – and, of course, that only ever means other people.
Despite his behavior, Musk is now the richest person in the world with a net worth of $267.7 billion. What started in 1999 as an idea for payment service X.com has grown into its corporate conglomerate consisting of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter. And Isaacson explains the renaming to X by quoting Musk: “This could be what Twitter is now,” he said. “When you combine a social network with a payments platform, you get what I wanted to do with X.com.”
Source: Blick
I am David Miller, a highly experienced news reporter and author for 24 Instant News. I specialize in opinion pieces and have written extensively on current events, politics, social issues, and more. My writing has been featured in major publications such as The New York Times, The Guardian, and BBC News. I strive to be fair-minded while also producing thought-provoking content that encourages readers to engage with the topics I discuss.
