Walter Isaacson’s book ‘Elon Musk’ hits cabinets, details explosive encounter with Bill Gates

Walter Isaacson’s book “Elon Musk” hit cabinets Tuesday, and the creator informed CNBC’s “Squawk Box” a couple of heated change he documented between the Tesla CEO and Bill Gates.

Isaacson mentioned his book chronicles the great, dangerous and ugly behind Musk, and that one of many issues that upsets the billionaire is when individuals brief Tesla inventory to attempt to make a revenue. Early final yr, Musk met with Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, who had beforehand shorted the automaker’s inventory and guess that it could lower in worth.

“The demons and dancing in Elon Musk’s head embody individuals who brief Tesla,” Isaacson mentioned Tuesday.

Gates wished to debate philanthropy efforts round local weather change with Musk, and Isaacson mentioned that since Musk didn’t have an assistant on the time, the 2 needed to textual content on to arrange the assembly. When Gates arrived, one of many first questions Musk requested was whether or not Gates was nonetheless shorting Tesla, and Gates answered truthfully: He was.

Isaacson mentioned Musk exploded, and Isaacson later obtained a textual content from Musk that referred to as Gates “insane” amongst different issues.

Read extra concerning the encounter in an excerpt from Isaacson’s book here.