Musk biographer Walter Isaacson points out in his new book that the billionaire is addicted to risk-taking. Those closest to Musk say he craves high-tension environments. Isaacson recalled Musk once saying: "I want to keep taking risks. I don't want to dwell on them."
Isaacson noted that even after achieving major business success, Musk would prepare for the next thing so as not to feel idle.
In one conversation Isaacson observed, Neuralink executive Shivonzilis, the mother of Musk's two children, told Musk: "You don't have to be at war all the time. ... Or do you find greater comfort in times of war?"
"It's part of my default setting," he told her.
"It's like he won a mock competition and now he doesn't know what to do," Ziris said of Isaacson. "It's going to be unsettling for him to be quiet for so long."
In October last year, the world's richest man acquired Twitter despite the opposition of many people. "I guess I always want to put the chips back on the table or get to the next level of the game," Musk told Isaacson. "I'm not good at sitting around doing nothing."
Gideon Nave, an associate professor of marketing at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, whose research focuses on the science of risk-taking. According to him, Musk's penchant for constantly searching for the next business target can be interpreted as an addiction to risky behavior.
“If you invest in a company that only has a 10 percent chance of success, and it succeeds, that’s a huge source of dopamine,” he said, noting that people like Musk rely on finding new sources of excitement — even if they’re already successful in their field.