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.

Listening Length

13 hours and 23 minutes
Author

Ashlee Vance
Narrator

Fred Sanders
Audible release date

28 April 2016
Language

English
Publisher

Random House Audiobooks
ASIN

B01EI53N9W
Version

Unabridged
Program Type

Audiobook
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Product details

Listening Length	13 hours and 23 minutes
Author	Ashlee Vance
Narrator	Fred Sanders
Audible.com.au Release Date	28 April 2016
Publisher	Random House Audiobooks
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B01EI53N9W
Best Sellers Rank	586 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) 1 in Computer & Technology Industry 2 in Biographies of Science & Technology Leaders 2 in Biographies of Scientists

Customer reviews

5 star		73%
4 star		19%
3 star		6%
2 star		1%
1 star		2%

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Top reviews from Australia

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Author Matthew Robert Payne

Could you find an extra few hours I could work a week?

Reviewed in Australia on 18 July 2020

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This was a fascinating look into the life of Elon Musk. This man is passionate, driven and a work- a- holic. He also has a spirit of excellence like the late Steve Jobs and Michael Jackson. It's not that he is a fanatic about things, he just needs perfection or as close as he can get to it. He is the hardest worker in his firm and sadly his work ethic tends to burn his engineers out too early. Like a rocket that flames out, many of his engineers seem to run out of steam with the grilling working schedules and weeks of never ending work and crazy hours worked in a week. I am sure if Elon could add hours to the week he would.

Though I am sure Elon is a lovely guy in social situations I am sure I would not like to work for him. That was a sad part of who he is and the way he runs his businesses and I am pretty sure Steve Jobs was almost the same in this way. But you cannot fault the dent that Elon has made in our society.

Two thumbs up!

Author Matthew Robert Payne.

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Jan

Well researched and written

Reviewed in Australia on 21 July 2020

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Ashlee Vance has done a remarkable job in putting together an insightful and entertaining narrative. I never got bored with the life story and character descriptions of Elon. What Elon Musk has achieved against so many odds and challenges is absolutely amazing. He has the vision and courage to pursue his goal without wavering in his ambition to achieve the best possible outcome. The book does Ashlee proud. The world owes a lot to visionaries like Elon who is a genius and my hero. As an engineer, I empathise with the frustration and perseverance required to achieve results according to the mission. Both Tesla and Space-X are examples of what can be achieved, which is well documented in the book.

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This is a great read. I kid you not.

Reviewed in Australia on 22 August 2015

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To say that I was ignorant of Elon Musk's existence is an understatement. While reading I thought to myself "surely I must have been aware somewhere that he existed. I use Paypal for heavens sake." It shows the power of a brand name that allows an individual like Musk to remain hidden, though that is now changing rapidly. After reading about his exploits and passions I hope that he lives and dreams big for a long time as he will be needed to bring those dreams to reality.
I recently read a book on Steve Jobs's life and my review was negative. Here though I am happy to recommend this book as it delivers a serious treatise on the life of an extraordinary character that also makes for an exciting read. It is also a story that is just beginning and I will hopefully get updates going forward. I must say this though about a character like Musk. Individuality is a commodity that is certainly not espoused by this man. Respect for the individual is sacrificed to create his empire and though it might be the way of things in this day and age I feel it is an emotional ambiguity Elon Musk might like to explore a little. Peter Eerden.

3 people found this helpful

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Sam PP

A Fascinating Biography!

Reviewed in Australia on 17 May 2021

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Elon Musk is no doubt a rockstar in not just the business but various industries. Ashlee Vance has done an outstanding job showcasing Elon's personal traits and the ups and downs in his life. I appreciate the fact that Ashlee did an updated version of the book and admire the time spent in multiple interviews done by both Elon and Ashlee. I'm sure many people who want to change their life perspective would love to see a memoir by Elon in the future!

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Ruwi

Overall good content

Reviewed in Australia on 27 June 2021

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No boasting or biased. Ashlee has managed to get the content just in right balance. Musk’s decision makings and reasonings at difficult situations are well portrayed.
Lot of detailed attention has given to people Musk worked with in each industry (X.com, Tesla and SpaceX), their backgrounds and how the came in touch with Musk.
Seemed like Musk has given Ashlee very little details to go on but Ashlee has done a thorough background review to put the pieces well together to bring out a detailed story.

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Anthony Millman

Elon Musk

Reviewed in Australia on 7 August 2020

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What a man how good is he, the World needs more people like him.Hopefully he will excel and be richly rewarded for his endeavers, he will go down in history as as the man who led the world in his dreams and aspirations to reach for the stars.
An excellent read and every page turn revealed a new gem of interest in this great man and his triumphs well done

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Michael

Compelling reading of one of our most enigmatic figures today

Reviewed in Australia on 12 January 2019

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A great read, with much of the nitty gritty backstory to Musk’s life, especially around family, friends and early endeavours. Is particularly good for diving into the differences between Musk and your typical high profile entrepreneur. It’s a little out of date reading it at the start of 2019, but not a big issue and much of the value is in the less public earlier coverage of Musk’s life. Hopefully there will be a huge demand for a follow up bio in a decade or two if and when, partly due to Elon’s efforts, humanity has really changed, and perhaps is even on Mars.

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Orangehb

Good boom

Reviewed in Australia on 8 August 2022

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Great quality and worth to get a physical copy. Fast delivery.

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Top reviews from other countries

Amit sarawagi

Elon Musk - Unstoppable force

Reviewed in India on 3 November 2017

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I just finished reading Elon Musk’s biography. Musk has always been my hero and this book sure did justice. One quality that I really admire in him is his ability to set clear vision. Once he sets the vision, Elon gives his blood, sweat and tears to make it a reality. People laughed at him when he first announced his vision on inter-planetary life. Since then he demonstrated significant enhancements in rocket technology and was able to produce a re-usable rocket. The analogy he gives is that of commercial plane, imagine after every flight between London and LA you throw away the plane how expensive will be your air ticket. Elon says his reusable rockets will make space travel 100 times cheaper. His reusability concept is brought to life with Falcon 9’s successful landing back on earth. Recently Elon presented how he plans to take humans to Mars in 2022 and build a city. SpaceX’s BFR project will carry 100 crew members along with equipment needed to set up a colony. He is not our typical Silicon Valley techie who wants to create a multi-million dollar corporation and cash out. His goals are bigger than money and fame. He wants to make a significant impact on humanity and make this world or even world beyond us a better place to live. His commitment and drive is unparalleled, he is ready to solve issues 3 in the morning on Sunday, and he works 7 days a week and doesn’t shy away from getting his hands dirty. He is hard to work with and does set tough goals for his people. Do you need to be tough to achieve success like SpaceX and Tesla? Can we taste the similar success with a little softer management style? What makes great entrepreneur? Do we need to be relentless like Elon? Or a management style of Richard Branson is equally productive where you place trust with people and they deliver?

367 people found this helpful

Ujjwal Biswas

Five Stars

Reviewed in India on 3 May 2018

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So good to have this book, if u wanna buy go for it

171 people found this helpful

Vijay Sood

Experience revolution here

Reviewed in India on 19 September 2018

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Before reading this book, I had always learnt about the great revolutions in the history books. But, After reading it, I realised that we are part of this great revolution created by individuals like gates, jobs, Bezos and Musk. Personally, I am more addicted to Musk now, may be because of his great vision. After reading about his journey to create the Tesla, SpaceX and Solar City, I understood that how visionaries actually think. And, specially his vision is for the betterment of human race. He is making every damn possible effort to lessen our dependence on fossil fuels and ultimately reducing the global warming. This books provides a great opportunity to dive into the mind of musk. He is a different individual for sure. Making all things possible. He has beaten not only big car manufacturers from US, Europe, China and Japan but also Big organisations like NASA. I recommend this book to everyone!

163 people found this helpful

A. T.

I liked learning about how Musk’s companies came to be

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 May 2018

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[NOTE: I received a copy of this book through NetGalley.]

An interesting read for me, considering I never went in depth into what Musk has accomplished (to be fair, I came to this book because I find Tesla cars sexy and thought ‘well, why not read this, at least I’ll know more about the man’).

I’m kind of sitting on the fence about this book. I liked learning about how Musk’s companies came to be, the problems encountered along the way, how things were at times one inch from just failing, but worked out in the end, out of both luck and determination. In a way, it’s a positive ‘lesson’: that sometimes things fail, but it shouldn’t prevent you from fighting for them and taking risks, because they just may succeed as well.

I also appreciated that the author interviewed other people, employees, ex-employees, friends, ex-partners, etc., and that he made them part of the whole: people without whom Tesla Motors or SpaceX wOuld’ve never been able to take off, engineers and mechanics and designers whose role was absolutely not negligible. Since a large part of the book was focused on these companies, acknowledging more than just one actor was a good thing to do.

I would’ve d liked it to go more in depth about how exactly things worked out, when it comes to the science/engineering part. Elon Musk seems like he knows his stuff, too, and has learnt over the years what he didn’t know and made him shoot for impossible deadlines at first (now I guess they’re just improbable, hah), and… I don’t know, I expected something more detailed in that regard. Maybe less of the business aspect, and more about the engineering the way Elon Musk himself goes about it?

Also, for a biography, I think it didn’t go to the bottom of things either when it comes to the man, and lacks a certain detachment. Musk doesn’t come off as a very empathetic person, to say the least, and while objectively I understand his drive, humanely the way he treats his employees is, well, not great at all. So I would’ve been interested in seeing more reflecting about this: coming from him, but also coming from the biographer. There -is- something wrong in the way all these visionary projects have come to be, and it was pretty much glossed over. (In short, was the harshness really needed, does innovation has to come to such a price, and would things have tanked with just a bit more empathy?)

This was instructive, and I kind of liked it, so 3 stars… But while I know more about Tesla Motors, SolarCity and SpaceX, I don’t feel like I know -that- much more about Musk himself now.

55 people found this helpful

The Tech Reviewer

Interesting and insightful

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 29 May 2019

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Excellent book which covers musk's life from an early age right up to the present
insightful stories and details about his companies and the struggles to get them off the ground
very inspiring and great book
Highly recommend to any Elon fan

27 people found this helpful

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