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  • Elon Musk

  • By: Ashlee Vance
  • Narrated by: Fred Sanders
  • Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (4,843 ratings)

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Elon Musk

By: Ashlee Vance
Narrated by: Fred Sanders
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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

What listeners say about Elon Musk

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Brilliant book

An amazing story of a truly remarkable and resilient man. Vance captures Musk's personality, both good and bad points, and digs deep into his success and failures.

Very well narrated.

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3 people found this helpful

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Musk is a machine

This biography of Elon Musk tells us his story in great detail and includes quotes from people in his life, that impact him positive AND negative. It was very interesting to see how people in his industry feel vs. his wives and family/friends. It captures Musk in a light where you can see he is VERY much a human but also explains his accomplishments and ideas that prove his is a machine. Highly recommend!

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really enjoyed this auduble book.

one of those items you can't put down. I highly recommend listening to Elon Musk; what a guy.

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Enlightening.

it was very interesting to learn about this complex person and his rise to fame and fortune. Love him or loathe him, you cannot deny his achievements.

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Incredible. No such thing as impossible.

Amazing story. Even more so 7 years on. I have owed a Tesla for some time but had no idea of the extent of his incredible life journey.

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Michael Berman

I really enjoyed the book it was quite educational to learn about Elon musk give me a lot of motivation and a change of attitude on how things are done. Thank you so much from michael

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Amazing, innovative person life expressed in the best possible way!!

Author has done good justice in depicting the life of Elon Musk, an extraordinary genius. He is less empathetic but with excellent creativity

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Bloody good

It’s an awesome insight into the life of the most talked about person in this world. The good, the bad, the ugly, the understandable and the not so understandable aspects of a complicated person.
Well done !!!

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  • S.
  • 22-03-2019

Very insightful on many levels. Recommended.

I enjoyed this far more than anticipated. And it's nowhere near as biased as I thought it might be. Lots of insight as to Musk and the challenges and development of his businesses, and provides numerous perspectives. Highly recommended.

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Brilliantly inspiring

Fantastic story telling. Sounds like a fair assessment of Musks journey from an outsiders perspective. It truly makes you believe Musk will be the richest man on earth, and probably be the reason we colononize Mars.

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