Elon Musk by Water Isaacson
Isaacson's authorized biography was published before some of Musk's most egregious attempts to make over the world and I first read it early 2025 as he and his Boys from Doge were slashing and burning through the US federal government. At the time I was aghast at what he and they were doing, and I wanted to understand how and why Musk had changed from being a guy who was a little squirrely but who nevertheless seemed to be championing some climate-friendly things like more-or-less affordable electric vehicles.
The answer, I think, is that everything he's done for years is part of his plan to get humans to the stars. Isaacson repeatedly mentions how important Musk thinks his rocket projects are. Sure, they are moneymakers, as they make his Starlink sattelites possible. But also they are supposed to be the next steps in Musk's grand plan to get to Mars and beyond. Earth is becoming unlivable, so space travel is the Plan B.
This biography should be required ready for anyone who worries about the future. The only hope is that Musk isn't always successful, and perhaps is becoming less and less so. Case in point: He spent nearly $500 million trying to elect Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections, but in most cases his candidates got soundly beaten. In fact about the only electoral victory he might feel good about was one where the other US technobros took the lead: the defeat of the billionaire tax measure in California. The one-time tax on the wealth of billionaires was voted down even tough a consortium of folks with very deep pockets spent a billion dollars or more on a multi-faceted campaign against it.
The fact that so many of the candidates that Musk backed lost is at least a little solace. "Know thy enemy" is one of the precepts that Sun Tzi put forward in his Art of War. Reading Isaacson's biography is a good first step.
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