Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future

Ashlee Vance

Apr 2016 · Virgin Digital · Narrated by Fred Sanders

4.6

531 reviews

Audiobook

13 hr 23 min

Unabridged

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About this audiobook

Brought to you by Penguin.

A remarkable man in possession of limitless curiosity and intellect, Elon Musk makes a fascinating subject.

Tech reporter Ashlee Vance has shadowed him for a year to bring us an engaging and deeply personal account of the man who wants to send us into outer space.

South African-born Elon Musk is the renowned entrepreneur and innovator behind PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity. Musk wants to save our planet; he wants to send citizens into space, to form a colony on Mars; he wants to make money while doing these things; and he wants us all to know about it.

He is the real-life inspiration for the Iron Man series of films starring Robert Downey, Jr. The personal tale of Musk's life comes with all the trappings one associates with a great, drama-filled story. He was a freakishly bright kid who was bullied brutally at school and abused by his father. In the midst of these rough conditions and the violence of apartheid South Africa, Musk still thrived academically and attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he paid his own way through school by turning his house into a club and throwing massive parties.

He started a pair of huge dot-com successes, including PayPal, which eBay acquired for $1.5 billion in 2002. Musk was forced out as CEO and so began his lost years, in which he decided to go it alone and baffled friends by investing his fortune in rockets and electric cars. Meanwhile Musk's marriage disintegrated as his technological obsessions took over his life...

Elon Musk is the Steve Jobs of the present and the future, and for the past 12 months he has been shadowed by tech reporter Ashlee Vance. Elon Musk is an important, exciting and intelligent account of the real-life Iron Man.

© Ashlee Vance 2015 (P) Penguin Audio 2016

Ratings and reviews

4.6

531 reviews

Jeff With'a Jay

January 31, 2020

An inspiring read... or listen. Elon is not perfect, but dammit he's closer than nearly all of us. This book has inspired me in more ways that one. Of the 100 plus books I've listened to over the last couple of years, I've spruiked this one the most to my pals, and anyone that will listen. Thanks Elon. And thanks to whatsimacallit the biographer.

39 people found this review helpful

Suraj Chakraborty

March 13, 2018

We only celebrate the feats achieved by Tesla and SpaceX but are not aware how they did it. It is just not by some billionaire's money that the companies are formed to fulfill his fantasies. It involves the sweat, pain and hardwork of a geeky, introverted, not so rich boy who grew his empire from nothing with the only mission statement he ever believed - to help mankind. Musk isn't Tony Stark who used to develop weapons. Musk isn't Batman who inherited his parents' money. Musk is just Musk, who is the superhero we all need. The book is amazing as it highlights Musk in a light we have never seen. Also, the book didn't shy away from some brutal truths about the organisation and Musk himself as a CEO but you would soon learn to ignore them like many of his employees and the world for the greater good. The audiobook is also beautifully narrated. My boring bus rides were suddenly enjoyable as I frequently found myself plugging in.

494 people found this review helpful

Tony Morley

February 21, 2018

This book abounds with fascinating and inspiring content. The reader is left with the overwhelming drive to be part of something later than him or herself. I very much enjoyed this text and would have rated the work 5/5, however, I felt I still wished for slightly more technical, engineering and physics data. It's still must read none the less! Grab the audiobook, you won't regret it.

190 people found this review helpful

About the author

Ashlee Vance is one of the most prominent writers on technology today. After spending several years reporting on Silicon Valley and technology for the New York Times, Vance went to Bloomberg Businessweek, where he has written dozens of cover and feature stories for the magazine on topics ranging from cyber espionage to DNA sequencing and space exploration.

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