Elon Musk

By: Ashlee Vance

Narrated by: Fred Sanders

Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

©2015 Ashlee Vance (P)2016 Random House Audiobooks

Proudly South African

Great story and very inspiring. Elon has a brilliant mind and makes me proud to be a South African.

Would highly recommend this book.

Enjoyable and educational

Quite an insightful take. I feel like I know Elon a lot better than what I’ve read on the internet.

Written by Elon Musk Fan

Edit by Elon Musk! Very one sided 🤔. Would be good if they write about how Elon Musk goes about his business

The greatest industrialist of our time

This is an amazing and deeply researched account of one of the most gifted figures of the last few decades. Elon has managerld to build a hugely complex and synergetic industrial empire in some of the most difficult and multi disciplinary fields including Electric vehicles, space exploration and renewable energy. As of writing he's now also involved in Artificial general intelligence and human computer augemantion. I highly recommend this book for any aspiring engineer, scientist or entrepreneur.

INSPIRATIONAL

The book is well written, I loved it. I recommend it to every1, who thinks that they are pushing hard in life but less rewarded. Wait until you learn of Elon Musk..

Great insight into Musk

A great and gripping book about a fascinating modern figure. Already it's kind of dated though and so much more could be added. But a great intro to all Musk's exploits. Really enjoyable, but I could've done without the narrator's voices/accents!

An inspiration

I have read the book also, but audio feels different. An inspiration story but narrative can be even better.

Fascinating insight

This is an excellent audio book onto the insights of Elon Musk. In particular the first half provides a brilliant view of his background, his leadership style and the type of personality that drives such an interesting person.

I did find the second half of the book a bit too much about the industry of space exploration, electric cars and solar power. This meant you were losing the insights into the person, and it became a more technical book on the industry.

Overall a great read but perhaps this should have been 2 books - one about the person and one about the industries.

extremely fascinating and inspiring story

The world really does need more Elon Musks! And this account of his life gives a clear understanding of how he achieved what he achieved and the type of person he had to be to achieve what he has. very inspiring story, some great nuggets of wisdom for those who may also be aspiring to make a real and meaningful difference in the world. The narration was also very enjoyable to follow.

awesome biopic..liked very much

loved it.. much easier to keep hearing a biography while driving or walking, and completed my first biopic of Elon Musk just in a week..