Elon Musk had no friends in school, was 'lonely and sad', new book claims

The Tesla chief would reveal that the problems were caused because he had Aspergers, a form of Autism Spectrum Disorder.

The world's richest person Elon Musk was "lonely and sad" as a child because he struggled to make friends in school, his new biography by journalist Walter Isaacson claimed. This also meant he had a hard time understanding social cues and had to read books to learn about them.

Isaacson wrote that Elon Musk's mother Maye Musk's decision to put him in nursery at three years old because he was "intellectually curious" was a mistake. The principal had warned her that he would experience social challenges because he was younger than anyone else in the class, Business Insider reported.

"It was a mistake," Isaacson wrote in the book. "Elon had no friends, and by the time he was in second grade he was tuning out."

Maye Musk told Isaacson that Elon Musk "became so lonely and sad," when he started going to school. "Kimbal and Tosca (Elon Musk's siblings) would make friends on the first day and bring them home, but Elon never brought friends home. He wanted to have friends, but just didn't know how," she said.

As a teenager, Musk and his family briefly lived in Toronto, and he insisted on following his sister Tosca Musk around to clubs and parties so he didn't have to be lonely, according to the book. Elon Musk walked "behind her and her friends," Isaacson wrote, "carrying a book to read whenever they went into a club or party."

The Tesla chief would reveal that the problems were caused because he had Aspergers, a form of Autism Spectrum Disorder, which made him "bad at picking up social cues," Business Insider reported.

"I took people literally when they said something," Elon Musk told Isaacson. "And it was only by reading books that I began to learn that people did not always say what they really meant."

Read more: Elon Musk's brother, friends 'hated' Amber Heard, Kimbal Musk called actor 'nightmare': book