Like myself, Elon Musk rents sumo wrestlers for his parties. I, however, also employ former astronauts to serve drinks. You can put your cigarette out on Buzz Aldrin’s forehead, and he will accept it with quiet resignation. 

Seriously, Elon Musk is a super-wealthy, highly driven and somewhat odd guy, which we already know, but in Dwight Garner’s NYT review of Ashlee Vance’s new Musk bio, his features are given some definition. An excerpt:

Other eye-popping details, not all of them previously reported, are flecked atop this book like sea salt. His five children don’t merely have nannies but have had a nanny manager. He worries that Google is building a fleet of robots that may accidentally destroy mankind. He rents castles and sumo wrestlers for his parties. At one of them, a knife thrower aimed at a balloon between the blindfolded Mr. Musk’s legs.

The best thing Mr. Vance does in this book, though, is tell Mr. Musk’s story simply and well. It’s the story of an intelligent man, for sure. But more so it is the story of a determined one. Mr. Musk’s work ethic has always been intense. One observer says about him early on, “We all worked 20 hour days, and he worked 23 hours.”

Mr. Musk was born in 1971 and grew up in Pretoria. His father was an engineer; his mother, whose family had roots in the United States and Canada, was a model and dietitian. There are indications his father was brutal, and that Mr. Musk is a tortured soul trying to make up for a wrecked childhood. But no one will speak specifically about any such events.•