Elon Musk is a self-proclaimed history buff.
“He likes military history,” Walter Isaacson, the writer of a much-anticipated Musk biography, told Axios. “He believes there are lessons that apply to corporate life.”
One of his inspirations was Napoleon Bonaparte, the French military genius who rose to power throughout the French Revolution and have become Emperor of France.
Isaacson points to 1 leadership strategy Musk learned from reading about Bonaparte.
“He believes that wherever Napoleon was, that is where his armies would do best. So he liked to indicate up late at night on the assembly lines at Tesla and SpaceX,” Isaacson said.
Related: ‘We Can All Agree Elon Isn’t Serious’: Mark Zuckerberg Slams Elon Musk as Feud Continues
Sharing the battlefield
For example, while engineers were constructing a Starship booster on the SpaceX launch site in Boca Chica, Texas, Musk hung around the realm for an hour, observing.
“If they see their general on the battlefield, they will likely be more motivated,” Musk told Isaacson.
This may explain why Musk spends a lot time within the ‘X’ offices. According to an article within the BBC, Musk has installed beds in Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters in order that he can sleep there.
According to worker Dolly Singh, Musk slept on the office floor at SpaceX.
“Elon desires to live in a world where he works 80 hours per week,” she said. “It’s OK for him to say, ‘I expect you to work as hard as me,’ because he is not phoning it in from the beach, he’s sleeping in a sleeping bag on the factory floor.”
About the brand new biography
The intimate, recent biography entitled Elon Musk will drop on September 12. Isaacson, who also wrote bestselling biographies of Steve Jobs and Leonardo da Vinci, spent two years shadowing Musk. He was given unprecedented access, attending meetings with him and joining him for walks around his factories. He also spent hours interviewing him, his family, friends, coworkers, and adversaries.
About the cage match
Oh, and speaking of Musk’s adversaries, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is undoubtedly one, as evidenced by all of the discuss a cage match between the 2 billionaires.
But Isaacson told Axios he thinks talk of Zuckerberg fighting Musk in a cage match “is totally ridiculous.”
Just a few days ago, he shared a screenshot of a text exchange between Musk and Zuckerberg, making the fight appear to be it won’t occur anytime soon.
I got this text message from Elon Musk at 4:44am CT showing a screenshot of some text messages by which he tells Mark Zuckerberg they need to fight this Monday at Zuckerberg’s home in Palo Alto. pic.twitter.com/krgRsH5P5G
— Walter Isaacson (@WalterIsaacson) August 13, 2023
