Welcome to the Monthly Newsletter by Amer Kaissi
Edition #45, September 2023
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It is very clear that Musk doesn’t have the ability to feel empathy. It is very common for him to describe other people’s ideas as “the dumbest thing I ever heard.” However, I don’t believe that is due to narcissism or meanness. Musk had a very violent childhood in his native South Africa and endured horrendous verbal abuse from his father. While he was never officially diagnosed, people close to him confirm that he is definitely on the autism spectrum (Asperger’s Syndrome).
While he can be very harsh and insensitive, Musk also has some moments of tenderness & graciousness. Isaacson recounts a story about a time when Musk was with a group of friends in Las Vegas partying in a limousine. One of the guys threw up in the back of the car. After the driver dropped the group to their hotel, Musk and another friend rode with the driver to a 7/11 store and bought paper towels & spray and cleaned up his car. He said that he didn’t want the poor driver to deal with the vomit by himself. More significantly and on the professional side of things, Musk was ousted from PayPal by his co-founders early in his career. Instead of turning bitter and angry, he was surprisingly gracious and stayed in good terms with them. Years later, the other co-founders came to his rescue & invested $20 million in Space X when it was struggling financially.
The main difference between Musk & many other billionaire founders is that Musk, at least at first, was motivated not by money but by saving the planet & making sure humanity survives. His companies- Space X and Tesla- were not founded to make money, they existed fight climate change and provide options for human civilization. I highly recommend this book, I have enjoyed all 688 pages of it!
