Elon Musk

New York: Simon & Schuster, 2023. First Simon & Schuster Hardcover Edition [stated]. First printing [stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xiii, [1], 670, [4] pages. Illustrated endpapers (rep in color). Illustrations. Sources. Notes. Index. DJ has minor wear and soiling. Inscribed by the author on the title page. Inscription reads To Kevin Best wishes, Walter Isaacson. Walter Seff Isaacson (born May 20, 1952) is an American author, journalist, and professor. He has been the president and CEO of the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C., the chair and CEO of CNN, and the editor of Time. Isaacson attended Harvard University and Pembroke College, Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. He is the co-author with Evan Thomas of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (1986) and the author of Pro and Con (1983), Kissinger: A Biography (1992), Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (2003), Einstein: His Life and Universe (2007), American Sketches (2009), Steve Jobs (2011), The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution (2014), Leonardo da Vinci (2017), The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race (2021) and Elon Musk (2023). Isaacson is a professor at Tulane University and an advisory partner at Perella Weinberg Partners, a New York City-based financial services firm. He was vice chair of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, which oversaw the rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina, chaired the government board that runs Voice of America, and was a member of the Defense Innovation Board. Elon Musk is an authorized biography of American business magnate and SpaceX/Tesla CEO Elon Musk. The book was written by Walter Isaacson, a former executive at CNN, TIME and the Aspen Institute who had previously written best-selling biographies of Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs and Leonardo da Vinci. The book was published on September 12, 2023, by Simon & Schuster. Elon Musk first announced that Isaacson was in the process of writing his biography in August 2021. He revealed that Isaacson had shadowed him "for several days so far". Isaacson followed Musk for the next two years, visiting his SpaceX and Tesla factories and attending board meetings. The book is the result of hours of interviews with Musk and his family, friends, colleagues and adversaries. Isaacson was present when Musk decided to buy Twitter and to run his new AI company; Musk also shared messages from the Ukrainian minister Mykhailo Fedorov, and some were included in the book. Isaacson later said in an interview that "Elon is very mercurial, but he never told me not to put anything in the book." Ahead of its publication, the book topped Amazon's bestseller list. It debuted at number one on The New York Times nonfiction best-seller list for the week ending September 16, 2023. Jill Lepore of The New Yorker wrote that "Isaacson's new biography depicts a man who wields more power than almost any other person on the planet but seems estranged from humanity itself". The reviewer found the book's ending a "disconcerting thing to read." On November 10, 2023, it was announced that A24 had purchased the film rights for an adaptation to be directed by Darren Aronofsky.