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

Ashlee Vance

May 2015 · Random House

About this eBook

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 Junior.

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 twelve months, he has been shadowed by tech reporter, Ashlee Vance. Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of Spacex and Tesla is Shaping our Future is an important, exciting and intelligent account of the real-life Iron Man.

Ratings and reviews

This book can be cleaved into two halves. The first half a more personal account of musk as the person and the struggles he faced while preserving his eccentricity. The second an elaborate recounting of tales from SpaceX and Tesla. This is where the book drags and could've​ been edited way more. Or as an alternative wait a decade more at least to write the book cause Musk looks like he's only just begun.

The book is a bit long but is a great, detailed insight into one of the greatest businessmen if not mind of our time. A must read for those who look up to him and those who look down or despise him as this book here might make you think differently. It will be a great for anyone interested in knowing more about Elon Musk or about how he has been able to achieve such high standards of success. This book inspired me by leaps and bounds.

Mr. Vance turned Musk's quite interesting story to a tirade about US manufacturing's revival. I doubt that Mr Musk, as a South African, really cares what happens to US industrial base as evidenced by the fact that he was all too ready to work with British,Thai or Japanese suppliers. Vance commits the cardinal sin for biograhy author by pushing his agenda ahead of the subject's story.

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.