Just kidding. This is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Naima Raza. The 738th, but surely it will be the most riveting.

Yeah, exactly. You know, no, it actually will. I've watched quite a few of them, and they sort of ask the same questions, and he gives the same answers. So I'm very excited to talk to him because I know him super well. And we've had a wrangling about this issue before and we're going to have one now.

No, no. So Walter Isaacson is our guest today. He's the biographer known for his epic treatments of Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, Jennifer Doudna, to name a few. He's also a repeat offender on our podcast, as you mentioned. Yeah. We had him on in March when you interviewed him live at the New Orleans Book Festival. And we knew we'd have him back on, but my producer instinct was not to get him out the gate, which we could have done, but to wait to see how the cookie crumbled with this biography. And Kara, how has the cookie crumbled?

Well, you know, there's controversy from the get-go over the Starlink error he made, which I'm surprised he made it. Elon pushed back, and then he looked like he was sucking up Elon. It wasn't great, but it was a major factual error. It just was. And then the reviews and coverage are from the New York Times, Washington Post, everywhere. They're not flattering. They talk about access journalism quite a bit and about whether this is too kind to him. I have no doubt it will sell tons and tons of copies because people like these things. And in

other countries, too. It's not just the States, right? Because in China, it's selling like hotcakes, apparently. A place where the culture hasn't shifted as much and they will be reading this, pouring over this. How did he get that rocket up? You know, that kind of stuff. That should be the tagline of the book. That's what they should have titled it. But the book has been critiqued by all these reporters, especially Brian Merchant's review in the LA Times, as being too flattering of Elon Musk. Merchant called it an Isaacson accord kind of trade between the subject and the biographer and all of Isaacson's biographies. But he does call him, Isaacson does call Elon Musk mercurial, maniacal, cruel. He comes off as a boyfriend you don't want, a boss you don't want, a dad you might not want. It's hardly glowing. No, but you can't ignore that. I mean, that's

the way he is. I just think it's larded over with a lot of praise is what it is and excuses for the behavior. And I get it. I get it. It's really inspirational, aspirational, the stuff he's done around, especially around the car, Tesla and around rocketry, he pushes forward. You know, he does things like he switches out a valve and it works better than anything else, like 10 times. And I'm like, okay, he's good at cutting costs. Like, okay. Or he like says, let's launch it anyway. And most of the time it works because most of the time you don't, you know, get shot in the head. But sometimes it doesn't. I sort of was like, oh, just stop making excuses for this behavior.

Yeah. I always like reading the prologue of a biography because the author kind of tells you what to think. It's a mise en place of the book. And he, in this one, it's, you know, it's Elon growing up in a violent home, in a violent country. He goes to this Lord of the Flies boot camp. He's on his way to an anti-apartheid concert. It even says he loves puppies and was willing to kind of wait his own, you know, delay his own medical treatment to save a puppy. It'll make sense when you read it. And, you know, gets access to his father who is... Who is just a jerk. A really dark soul. Just a jerk. And the wives and baby mamas are making excuses for him. So the prologue kind of excuses a lot.

Yeah, it does. It does. It does. And lots of people have terrible parents. I have a terrible stepfather. I'm not out doing this. You know, it's just, a lot of people had lots of experiences like this. And so does it excuse

it because we get a cheaper rocket or an electric car? According to Walter, yes. What is your overall emotion that you feel while reading this book? Boredom. Boredom.

Boredom? Boredom, yeah. I don't think it makes him soaring. I think he is a fascinating figure. And it's, I saw this, and then I saw this, and then I saw this. And I

get the pluses of that. Is it boring to you because you know every detail? Or many details? There are new details and newsworthy details in here. I was riveted to his Franklin

biography. I thought it was really fast. I didn't even know. I knew it was going to happen next, but I didn't, right? And so in the telling, it was maybe because he was dead. I maybe felt more freedom, I

guess. I don't know. Boredom is a big critique. Rocket, rocket, rocket.

Oh, it worked.

Like, okay. I don't know. But the three other important critiques I think that we want to ask him about, pointing out what's missing that should have been in there. So who should he have spoken to that he didn't speak to? Not enough sources. A lot of Elon's friends. And then to that second question, he does footnote a lot of things, but there's a lot of he said, she said, or he said, he said in this book. And it's unclear, you know, what is fact and what is gospel or... Or

he's just making it up. And my instinct is he's making it up. Elon's making it up, you're saying. Not Walter. No, not Walter. I think he's an excellent journalist. He doesn't lie.

And then the third critique has been it's not deep enough or scrutinizing enough or skeptical enough. So those are all, I think, fair critiques that we should ask him about. 100%. But you're not surprised because the last time we spoke to him, you said afterwards, like, Walter is a camera.

Yeah, he's being a camera. He talked about being silent while he was writing it, and he's talked about that. And I think that's right. You sit and watch, right? You don't argue. And you just see, see, see. He had an unprecedented access for two years. At some point, I want him to say what he thinks. What if what he thinks is that he likes Elon, like the way you say you like Reid Hoffman or you like? Then he should just say it. Then he should say it a little more clearly.