logo
episode-header-image
Sep 2023
24m 26s

Elon Musk's Biography and Profiling Naom...

The New York Times
About this episode

Elon Musk, the billionaire South Africa-born entrepreneur whose business interests include the electric car company Tesla, the private rocket company SpaceX and the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), is the richest person in the world — and the subject of an expansive new biography by Walter Isaacson, whose earlier subjects famously include the Apple founder Steve Jobs. Our critic Jennifer Szalai discusses her review of the Musk biography.

Szalai also discusses her recent Times Magazine profile of the writer and activist Naomi Klein, whose new book, “Doppelganger,” examines the “mirror world” of online conspiracy theories and paranoia and its effect on real-world politics.

Up next
Aug 23
Book Club: Let's Talk About 'Wild Dark Shore,' by Charlotte McConaghy
Charlotte McConaghy’s latest novel, “Wild Dark Shore,” opens with an enigma: A mysterious, half-drowned woman washes ashore.The stranger’s name is Rowan, and she has arrived on Shearwater, a remote island near Antarctica. The island, which houses an important seed bank, was once ... Show More
43m 50s
Aug 15
The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century: 'Pachinko' (Rerun)
Summer is slipping away and we are on break this week. But we have a fantastic rerun for you — our conversation with Min Jin Lee from last summer, when her book "Pachinko" was named one of the "100 Best Books of the 21st Century" by a New York Times Book Review panel. She spoke a ... Show More
34m 35s
Aug 8
This Reporter Can Tell Us What Nuclear Apocalypse Looks Like
Imagine, if you will, that for unknown reasons North Korea has just launched a nuclear bomb at the United States. What happens next?The journalist Annie Jacobsen has imagined exactly that, and spent more than a decade interviewing dozens of experts while mastering the voluminous ... Show More
45m 40s
Recommended Episodes
Mar 2023
Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance Biography - Book Summary and Review | Free Audiobook
Show notes / PDF & Infographic / Free Audiobook / Elon Musk is the renowned entrepreneur behind PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity. Musk’s mission with each of these companies was to save humanity. In this book, Ashlee Vance provides an outline of the experiences that have made ... Show More
21m 7s
Oct 2022
Elon Musk vs. Twitter Part III: Musk Offers To Buy Twitter (Again)
Just days before a trial to determine if Elon Musk would be forced to buy Twitter was scheduled to begin, Musk sent a letter offering once again to buy Twitter for the same price he'd originally offered in April. Musk has a unique tolerance for risk at his companies, but the surp ... Show More
17m 12s
Oct 2022
Elon Musk vs. Twitter Part IV: Musk's Must-Do List
How It Happened: Elon Musk vs. Twitter Part IV: Musk's Must-Do List features reporting from Axios media reporter Sara Fischer about the challenges at Twitter that Musk could inherit — and what he might do about them. Fischer takes listeners inside Twitter to understand how the pl ... Show More
34m 23s
Apr 2022
What will Elon Musk do with Twitter?
Elon Musk has more money than anyone else in the world. Sometimes it seems like the SpaceX and Tesla CEO has the most disruptive, influential companies, too. And this week, Musk reached a $44 billion deal to bring something even more iconic under his ownership: Twitter. What coul ... Show More
21m 34s
May 2023
Wondery Presents - Flipping The Bird: Elon vs Twitter
When Elon Musk posted a video of himself arriving at Twitter HQ carrying a white sink along with the message “let that sink in!” It marked the end of a dramatic takeover. Musk had gone from Twitter critic to “Chief Twit” in the space of just a few months but his arrival didn’t pu ... Show More
4m 42s
Jan 2023
Elon Musk vs. Twitter Part V: Cracks in the Empire
How It Happened: Elon Musk vs. Twitter Part V: Cracks in the Empire explores whether Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter has made his cross-industry empire too big for one billionaire to run. Host Erica Pandey examines Musk's first months as CEO of Twitter and the simultaneous cha ... Show More
32m 9s
Oct 2022
Elon Musk vs. Twitter Part II: Empire of Risk
How It Happened: Elon Musk vs. Twitter Part II: Empire of Risk explores how Musk's philosophy on risk brings people far beyond his consumers and employees into the experiments he runs. Axios reporters Joann Muller and Miriam Kramer draw on years of reporting on Tesla and SpaceX r ... Show More
29m 20s