Elon Musk: Tesla, Spacex, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future

by Ashlee Vance

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.

• ISBN10: 0062301268
• ISBN13: 9780062301260
• Publish Date: 19 May 2015
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: Ecco Press
• Format: eBook
• Pages: 416
• Language: English

Reviews

[adamfortuna]

It's weird to read so much science fiction, then read a biography that sounds like it would work there as well. Somehow Elon Musk has stayed off my radar -- I don't how. His past and present have intersected with many interests of mine, from Paypal, SpaceX, Solar City and Tesla, yet I've never looked into the man himself.

Reading this was like reading the backstory of Tony Stark (Iron Man) -- even to the point where Robert Downey Jr met with Musk to help flush out the character. His rise with Paypal, his management style and lack of personal empathy over action show how he's put productivity and his goals ahead of any kind of personal relationships. With the recent successes of Tesla and SpaceX, I'm looking forward to see what he does next.