- Elon Musk passed out in a meeting that involved shots of vodka, his new biography says.
- He was said to be negotiating buying rockets in Moscow after partying in Paris the night before.
Elon Musk once passed out during a Moscow meeting in which he had several shots of vodka, Walter Isaacson's new biography of Musk says.
The SpaceX CEO told Isaacson that, before founding the company in 2002, he instead wanted to launch a mission that would inspire public interest in space exploration. His first plan, called "Mars Oasis," involved sending a greenhouse to Mars.
So Musk recruited a rocket engineer named Jim Cantrell, and along with Adeo Ressi — the Founder Institute CEO who's Musk's former college housemate — they arranged a business meeting with a group of unnamed Russian businesspeople to negotiate buying rockets, the book says.
The journey included a stopover in Paris, Isaacson wrote, where a late night of partying left Musk "ragged" upon arriving in the Russian capital.
Then, in the back room of a Moscow restaurant, the lunchtime meeting involved "small bites of food interspersed with large shots of vodka," the biography says. The Russians also gifted the trio a bottle of vodka each with custom labels showing pictures of each recipient on Mars.
"I calculated the weight of the food and the weight of the vodka, and they were roughly equal," Musk told Isaacson.
And then, in the biographer's words, "Musk, who was holding his head up with his hand, passed out, and his head slammed into the table."
Back in January, Musk said he disliked "the taste or effects of most alcohol" but expressed a preference for red wine. The billionaire was also pictured drinking from a wine glass at the FIFA World Cup final in Qatar last year. And in 2017, Musk tweeted: "A little red wine, vintage record, some Ambien ... and magic!"
After the Moscow incident, there was said to be another unsuccessful meeting on the trip before Musk returned in early 2002. Isaacson wrote that Musk thought he had struck a deal to buy two Dnepr rockets for $18 million, but that the sellers actually wanted $18 million for each.
And when Musk pushed back, they apparently upped the price to $21 million each. Cantrell told Isaacson the Russian businesspeople then taunted the SpaceX founder, saying: "Oh, little boy, you don't have the money?"
Musk didn't immediately reply to a request for comment from Insider.