An author working on an Elon Musk biography says writing it is like ‘trying to take notes while drinking from a fire hose’

• Biographer Walter Isaacson is working on a book about Elon Musk and discussed it with the NYT Wednesday.
• “Dealing with his life is like trying to take notes while drinking from a fire hose,” Isaacson told the outlet. 
• This is amid Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter and assorted other controversies. 

Writing a biography about the world’s richest man conjures images of putting out fires and stopping fast-moving water, according to a quote from one of Elon Musk’s more recent biographers reported by The New York Times Thursday. 

“Dealing with his life is like trying to take notes while drinking from a fire hose. It keeps coming fast,” said Musk biographer Walter Isaacson, who has written about Steve Jobs and Leonardo da Vinci, the outlet noted. 

Issacson completed a phone interview with the Times Wednesday, amid Musk’s $44 billion dollar acquisition of Twitter and his antics in the days since, which have included harassing company executives and opining on free speech. 

But even outside of his last couple of weeks with Twitter, there’s a lot to say about Musk. 

He has had a rich personal life, including his “fluid” relationship with singer Grimes, two wives prior to that, seven total children, a difficult childhood, and penchant for living in or (saying he lives in) homes that are wildly at odds with the amount of wealth he has amassed: $253 billion, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. 

He’s also built several companies, including luxury electric carmaker Tesla, SpaceX, and PayPal. 

His complex life and openness about it (Issacson said that Musk has been very forthright with material and people to talk to; Musk even announced the biography himself last August) has made for an easy time writing about him in some ways, Issacson told the Times. 

“The good thing about Elon Musk is everybody wants to talk about him and everybody’s got thoughts about him,” he said. 

He even pushed back on a perception that Musk’s mercurial activities, from changing course on big statements to trolling people online, make it hard to write an unchanging narrative for a book about him. 

“I don’t think he’s as random as he allows himself to appear,” Issacson said.

Simon and Schuster did not immediately respond to a request for comment on what the publication date of the biography might be, and Musk also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.