The Man Who Followed Elon Musk Everywhere: "Elon's Dad Abused Him, His Trans Child Disowned Him, And Here Are His Secrets For Success!" Walter Isaacson

If you ever wanted to see inside the mind of the richest and most powerful man in the world, this episode is for you.
Before becoming the world’s leading biographer, Walter Isaacson was formerly the chair and CEO of ’CNN’, the editor of ’Time’, and President and CEO of the ’Aspen Institute’. His best-selling biographies including, ‘Steve Jobs’, ‘Leonardo da Vinci’, ‘Einstein: His Life and Universe’, and most recently, 'Elon Musk'.
In this conversation Walter and Steven discuss topics, such as:

How he followed Elon Musk for 2 years

Elon Musk’s childhood

Elon’s abusive father

The mental and physical scars of Elon’s childhood

What haunts Elon

Why Elon equates pain with love

The 2 sides and personalities of Elon

Elon’s ‘demon mode’

Why Elon loves drama and chaos

What separates Elon from everyone else

If he thinks Elon is a genius

Elon’s first principle thinking

Why Elon ignores rules and likes risk takers

How 80% of people can’t work with Elon

Why Elon bought Twitter

How Twitter has hurt Elon

Elon’s 3 aims for humanity

Why there will be a mission to Mars in 30 years tim

Elon’s rules for success

How Elon and Steve Jobs changed reality

Why Elon is not happy

Elon and Jeff Bezo’s rivalry


You can purchase Walter’s new biography, ‘Elon Musk’, here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Elon-Musk-Walter-Isaacson/dp/1398527491

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The Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartlett is a podcast hosted by Steven Bartlett, the CEO of the social media management company, Social Chain. The podcast features Bartlett's reflections on his experiences as a CEO, as well as interviews with other business leaders and entrepreneurs. The show provides insights into the challenges and opportunities of running a successful business, as well as the personal journeys of its guests. The Diary of a CEO is known for its honest and candid discussions on the realities of being a CEO, and is aimed at helping listeners understand the inner workings of successful businesses.

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I was a broke, university dropout, at 18 I built an industry leading social media marketing company, and at 27 I resigned as CEO. At 28 I co-founded Flight Story – a marketing and communications company, and thirdweb - a software platform, making it easy to build web3 applications. I then launched private equity fund, Flight Fund, to accelerate the next generation of European unicorns. During this time I decided to launch 'The Diary Of A CEO' podcast with the simple mission of providing an unfiltered journey into the remarkable stories and untold dimensions of the world’s most influential people, experts and thinkers.

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• No. of episodes: 691
• Latest episode: 2025-06-23
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