Review

Ambition

Culture

3 November 2023

6 min read

The awe and outrage of Musk's toxic ingenuity

Walter Isaacson’s Elon Musk, is a biographic rollercoaster reckons Krish Kandiah. One marked by magnificent moments and moral crossroads.

Krish Kandiah

Krish is a social entrepreneur partnering across civil society, faith communities, government and philanthropy. He founded The Sanctuary Foundation.

Elon Musk, wearing a dark suit, stands on a stage to a white robotic looking surgical robot.

Elon Musk at a demonstration of the Neuralink technology in 2020.

There is something both inspiring and unnerving about Elon Musk. He is a game-changing pioneer and innovator in so many industries pivotal to our future: rockets, electric cars, solar panels, batteries, satellite Wi-Fi, and Artificial Intelligence. But he is also no stranger to scandal, controversy and allegation. In his latest biography, author Walter Isaacson explores the toxicity as well as the ingenuity that has come to be associated with the richest man on the planet. As he reveals Musk’s series of successes, and what has been sacrificed to acquire them, I found myself going on an emotional journey: from compassion to awe to outrage.

Compassion: a man familiar with misery

In the opening chapter of his book Isaacson draws attention to the trauma in Elon’s childhood. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Elon was socially awkward at school. When he once pushed back at a boy who bumped into him, he was being beaten up so badly his face was unrecognisable. When he returned from hospital Musk reports how his father reacted: “I had to stand for hours. He yelled at me and called me an idiot and told me that I was just worthless.” There are a number of similar stories from Musk’s seemingly brutal childhood. Errol Musk, Elon’s father, features heavily in a series of shocking revelations including that he slept with his own stepdaughter, fathering two children with her. The background of Musk’s chaotic childhood, his experience of domestic abuse, and his series of fractured relationships provides a context for some of the strange, indeed outrageous things catalogued in the book.

Having worked for many years with children in the care system and with refugee experience, I understand a little about the impact of trauma and how it can change the brain in profound ways. There is a great deal of evidence showing how adverse childhood experiences can cause long-lasting impact on decision-making, impulse control, relationship building, mental health management and emotional regulation. While many turn to alcohol, drugs or self-harm as coping mechanisms, others, perhaps like Musk, channel the pain into ambitions and achievements.

I found myself feeling profoundly sorry for Musk. No child should have to experience such prolonged cruelty both at school and at home. All of us need to know that we are loved and valued, independent of anything we have done or anything that has been done to us.

Awe: a man of magnificent moments

Musk’s ideas have revolutionised so many industries. The automotive industries move to electric power owes a lot to the innovation of Tesla. His Space X programme is currently changing the way we think about space travel. His company was the first to create self-landing reusable rockets and was the first private owned company to develop a liquid-propellant rocket that reached orbit; the first to launch, orbit, and recover a spacecraft; the first to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station; and the first to send astronauts to the International Space Station. He is also trying to revolutionise Artificial Intelligence (AI) through his company xAI - a direct competitor to Open AI even though he was one of their early backers.

Musk has a complex relationship with AI as he is not only one of the lead innovators in the field but also the most prominent of the 33,000 signatories of a letter calling for a pause to ‘Giant AI Experiments’ until there is, in Musk’s words, “a regulatory body established for overseeing AI to make sure that it does not present a danger to the public."

AI, alongside each of the other major interest areas in Musk’s work, is way beyond any dreams I ever had of a futuristic world. Musk has managed not only to imagine the unimaginable, but to find a way to get there with impressive speed, scale and sustainability values. The more I read about the innovations involved in each step of each project, the more impressed I am with the genius behind them.

Outrage: a man without a moral compass?

Despite Walter Isaacson’s clear respect for all Musk is achieving, he paints a warts-and-all picture of his book’s subject. We see a man who is ruthless in his hirings and firings, who has often treated staff and colleagues badly. In 2018, he famously called a rescue diver, helping to save teenage boys from a flooded cave in Thailand, a ‘paedo’, in what seemed to be a reaction to a snub to his offer of using his minisub.

In light of these sorts of outbursts, and his apparent desire to save the world from looming environmental disaster, it is no wonder that some people have accused Musk of having a messiah complex. Yet if he does, it is a very different mindset from the true messiah. He appears to me to be morally, emotionally and financially the polar opposite to the Jesus whose willingness to sacrifice himself on behalf of those in need was central to his claim to be sent from God. From the way Isaacson describes Musk, I see him more as a man on a mission to save himself than to save those around him.

The future? Musk, a man at a crossroads.

Isaacson closes his book with the following analysis:

“But would a restrained Musk accomplish as much as Musk unbound? Is being unfiltered and untethered integral to who he is? Could you get the rockets to orbit or the transition to electric vehicles without accepting all aspects of him, hinged and unhinged? Sometimes great innovators are risk-seeking man-children who resist potty training. They are reckless, cringeworthy, sometimes even toxic. They can also be crazy. Crazy enough to think they can change the world.”

I find this a disconcerting epilogue to the book. It suggests that we can pardon toxicity in the name of innovation, that the ends always justify the means, that morality and decency can take second place to advancement and wealth. If this stance were to be applied to, say, the development of AI, Musk’s fears of it becoming a danger to the public may sadly well be realised.

While factors such as grand ambition, the contribution to society, early years trauma, and mental health struggles may provide a robust explanation of why a person may be toxic, toxicity itself can never be excused. No amount of wealth can undo the harm toxic masculinity does to those around us. No amount of charitable giving can buy a person a generous spirit or moral compass. No amount of environmental awards can create the sort of world we really want to live in in the future – a world where people treat one another with the respect they need and deserve.

Elon Musk’s biography is unusual because he is still mid-journey. Who knows what else he may go on to achieve or fail at, to create or destroy? Will his AI revolution be a force for good, helping to create a better future for those who need it most, or will it become the behemoth of the doomsayers? What will future editions add to his biography? Is being ‘untethered’ really integral to who Musk is, or can he change? The visionary in me would love to imagine a redemption and transformation story for Musk that can unleash a compassionate generosity that could even overshadow his creative genius. The sceptic in me fears he may end up doing more harm than good.

Article

Awe and wonder

Culture

Sport

Wildness

10 July 2025

6 min read

Surfing with Dostoevsky: what waves taught me about the journey

The water draws things out of us that we can’t see on our own

Rick Hansen

Rick writes and speaks on leadership, transformation, and culture.

Oliver Sjöström on Unsplash.

Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote in The Brothers Karamazov, “The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.” For many, the true purpose of life is not merely a philosophical concept, but a fundamental inquiry. It's about uncovering something beyond our individual selves, an answer to the inherent question about the very meaning of our existence.

The place where I find myself pondering this mystery is on my surfboard. Whether anticipating a wave or carving along its emerging curl, the ocean consistently beckons me to meditate on a quest for a re-enchantment of our profound spiritual mystery.

I have loved surfing since I was young. I remember the first wave I really surfed in Southern California. I was 14 and an insecure high school kid who struggled with a severe stutter. It was so bad that I viewed everything in my life through the lens of my stutter. Consequently, I always wanted to hide in the shadows and never be seen, because any time I opened my mouth to speak it was a mess. But something happened for me that day that forever changed how I saw myself. On that wave, I saw my potential, my person, not just my stutter.

That morning the water was alive with a crazy energy churning just below the belly of my board. The waves were rolling in as beautiful lines etched against the morning sky. They stacked up on the outside reef and I picked my ride. I put my hands deep in the cold, blue waters and my heart began to race as I pulled and paddled toward the unknown. The wave that I chose rose to a perfect liquid wall. It was sheer beauty.

At that moment, it was just me and that wave. I realized I didn’t have to talk to anyone or worry about what others thought of me. Instead, I felt alive and free to be me. In this freedom, I could feel the exhilaration of pulling and paddling toward the horizon full of fear and excitement. I was caught up in the rush of the unknown size, shape and personality of the wave and what I would do once I caught it.

In a split second, I pivoted 180 degrees, perfectly positioned my body on the board, put my hands deep into the rising pitch, pulled in, and snapped up to my stance all in a single movement.

As I dropped in, my insecurities, my doubts, my fears …. my stutter vanished like the mist spraying off the curling wave. In that instant, I felt a connection to something beyond me as I found my line and carved up and down the face of the wave. I was forever hooked like an artist sculpting beauty out of a block of stone. On that wave I saw myself in a new and different light of potential. I converged with the board, the moment, with what needed to be done, and looked for what could be done. I found something more, something beyond me. "The experience of art is a cleansing of the spirit, a return to deeper emotional and imaginative states,” as Pablo Picasso put it.

You might say it’s weird but surfers have a deep sense of trust in the experience of surfing; the wave draws things out of us that we couldn’t see on our own. It inspires us to push our limits until we see and realize our potential, until we see something more.

Surfer Easkey Britton is the first Irish woman to be nominated for the Global WSL Big Wave Awards. She is a scientist, academic and social activist, with a PhD in Environment and Society and she is always one to look in places others aren’t for the answers to difficult questions. She said,

“A wave is like a mirror to our soul. Whether we paddle out and into the horizon, take a drop down the face of a liquid wall, or dive deep under a mountain of water as it crashes overhead, the wave reflects our fears, our willingness, our vision, our potential.”

Are we willing to look at ourselves in the mirror? Or better yet are we willing to venture out into the wild and let something else bigger than us show us … us?

I am not saying that wave gave me something to live for, but it did show me I was something more than my insecurity, my shortcoming, my limited view of who I was and what I perceived I could be. It revealed something outside of and beyond me. It acted much like that mirror Easkey talked about, and it revealed that I hid behind a cover, a disguise, a fear. In a melodic almost musical repose, it crashed on the shores of my perception and gently but powerfully rattled my forming identity and revealed something more.

Dostevesky speaks not of a moment but of a journey to find something, to find that thing that moves your soul, that stirs your being into that sense where we ponder “something to live for.” Surfing did that for me.

For the surfer the reward is the journey of the never ending search for the next wave. It’s not about just one wave, just one drop. It’s the whole experience of the journey, wave after wave; it’s the sensation of the ride and the work that gets us there. It’s where we find a sense of significance, a sense of something greater. As Henri Matisse put it, "Creativity takes courage.”

I remember when I was studying at Oxford University, I longed for the noise of the calming surf. Instead, all I could hear was the occasional buzz of traffic outside and the silent enchantment of academia whispering in the quiet, cold, majestic city parks. Yet like the ocean it too in its own way was quietly calling me to find that “something to live for.”

Surely now in a world of powerful currents and unsuspecting waves, we need more than ever to find something to live for—something beyond ourselves. This era of rapid technological advancement, instability, division, and volatility underscores a heightened need for deeper discussions about meaning, hope, purpose, and what truly gives life value. Like a surfer paddling out toward the horizon, dropping in on a wave, and finding her line, we need to never give up the search for the immeasurable and fascinate our soul with this journey. For the surfer there is a great, almost deep joy in finding that ethereal line stretched out in the emerging pitch.

The wave, though external, compels us to look beyond our individual selves. It pushes us to experience something vast, transcending the confines of our self-centeredness and exposing us to a world—and potentially a hope—far grander than our limited perception.

As I carve up and down the face of the wave like that sculptor, I continually deepen myself into this essence of something greater, something bigger than me. I am ever drawn to its soulful re-enchantment as it gently but powerfully confronts me with the microcosm of my ‘me-ism’, with the truth that I was created to live for something and perhaps even for Someone vastly bigger than myself.

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