Elon Musk “hardly remembers” his own “demon-like” outbursts, the author of a new biography about the tech billionaire has claimed.
Walter Isaacson told Morning Joe Mr Musk has “many personalities” and said he is prone to “demon-like” outbursts.
“There are many Elon Musks,” he said.
Mr Isaacson, who wrote a biography on the Tesla CEO, told host Joe Scarborough that Mr Musk has been “volatile his whole life” — not just during recent years.
“When I started this book, when we first talked about it, this was the guy who was bringing us into the era of electric vehicles and the only person who could send American astronauts into orbit from the US. I thought, ‘Hey, good technology story,’” he said.
Mr Isaacson continued: “And then on the way, about a year into my reporting, he’s secretly buying up Twitter and then going to Hawaii in a two- or three-night binge and deciding to take it over. So it became a hell of a lot more of a rollercoaster ride then. And the dark strands in him, as well as the competence strands, are tightly woven together.”
The biographer also claimed Mr Musk’s personality is similar to that of his estranged father who “sometimes goes very dark”.
“He has so many personalities, almost like multiple personalities and a bit like his father, whom he doesn’t speak to now, but his father is a Jekyll and Hyde and sometimes goes very dark,” he said.
He continued: “And it happened to Elon, too. He’ll go from being very giddy or being in engineering mode where he can figure out the valve of a raptor engine and suddenly the clouds come.
“And the amazing thing is, after he’s gone dark and been demon-like and really tough on people, he’ll snap out of it. And then I’ll ask him, “What was that all about?” And he hardly remembers it.
“So when you ask about what’s it like dealing with the Elon Musk, I say there are many Elon Musks in this book.”
Mr Isaacson spoke with several figures close to Mr Musk while writing the biography, including his ex-girlfriend Grimes and his former wives Tallulah Riley and Justine Musk, as well as his estranged father.
So far, the book has also revealed Musk and Grimes secretly welcomed a third child, in addition to X and their 22-month-old daughter Exa Dark Sideræl. However, it was not immediately clear when their second son, named Techno Mechanicus or “Tau”, was born.
In the biography, Mr Isaacson also writes that the tech mogul’s brother Kimbal Musk and his friends “hated” ex-girlfriend and actor Amber Heard so intensely, it “made their distaste for Justine [Musk’s first wife] pale”.
One review by The New York Times said Mr Isaacson’s biography stitches together a portrait of a Mr Musk as a “mercurial ‘man-child’”.
