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BOOK: Elon Musk: Risking It All by Michael Vlismas (Jonathan Ball)
"The intention of this book was never to provide a comprehensive biography," writes Michael Vlismas of his account of billionaire Elon Musk, which has been updated but does not deal with the controversy over Musk’s purchase of Twitter or his self-definition as a "free-speech fundamentalist". "Rather, it was to offer an overview of the life of a man with South African roots and how his roots may have shaped him...". A "common response" to Musk, Vlismas says, "seems to be either to declare him the saviour of humanity or immediately discredit him as a charlatan rather than adopt a more moderate approach to him and his ideas." He also adds: "Musk could well come to represent the most audacious experiment in our modern culture’s pervasive cult of personality." The book has a new afterword containing an interview with Elon Musk’s father Errol, whom Musk himself described as "a terrible human being". So what does Errol have to say about Elon? Here is an excerpt from the afterword.
Errol Musk sits in his home on the Cape West Coast. It’s a grey day in the town of Langebaan, which stretches out below him. He is on his couch in a spacious living room. There is a large telescope near the balcony, a painting of one of his daughters on an easel and a large table scattered with papers. He is writing a book, he says.
