Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance

Publisher: HarperCollins

First Publication: 2015

Book Review: Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance

In Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, author Ashlee Vance provides a richly detailed look at the life and career of Silicon Valley’s most ambitious entrepreneur. As the founder of groundbreaking companies like Tesla Motors and SpaceX, Musk has energized the tech industry with his bold visions for revolutionizing automobiles, space exploration, and sustainable energy. Vance’s unauthorized biography offers unprecedented access to Musk’s story through interviews with family, friends, collaborators and competitors.

The book traces Musk’s journey from his unusual childhood in South Africa to his arrival as a gifted but naive Silicon Valley wunderkind in the mid 1990s. Musk taught himself computer programming at age 12 and sold his first software company at 22. His early successes eventually led to the formation of X.com, which later became PayPal and earned Musk hundreds of millions when it was acquired by eBay.

According to Vance, Musk showed a relentless work ethic even at a young age, routinely putting in 100+ hour work weeks. His singular focus and self-confidence enabled him to thrive despite a challenging childhood. Yet his domineering manner and confrontational style alienated some collaborators. The biography suggests Musk requires total commitment from those around him to achieve his grand visions.

The biography really gains momentum when examining Musk’s audacious forays starting in the 2000s into rockets, electric vehicles and solar energy. Even as critics characterized Musk’s plans at SpaceX and Tesla as unrealistic, he stunned the business world by making enormous strides at both companies. Vance provides insider accounts of how Musk managed this through his skills as a self-taught designer and engineer, as well as his gift for attracting talent and funding.

Vance constructs Musk’s persona as an obsessive visionary, able to master intricate technical details while keeping his eyes trained on changing the world. Yet his rigor and combativeness toward naysayers also isolated him at key moments. Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future positions its protagonist as a complex and contradictory figure, adept at marshaling resources toward eccentric projects that often do come to fruition against all odds.

Some of the biography’s most riveting passages concern Musk’s all-consuming work building Tesla into a functional automotive company. Vance conveys Musk’s fanatical attention to bringing his ideals around electric vehicle design into reality, even as costs soared and deadlines slipped. We see Musk make impulsive decisions that pay off hugely as Tesla ships advanced electric cars like the Model S to glowing acclaim. But the strain of leading Tesla nearly breaks Musk according to Vance, with the CEO describing 2013 as “a misery.”

While Tesla first made Musk a business superstar, Vance argues that SpaceX remains closest to the CEO’s heart as a path toward his childhood dreams of space travel. Starting from humble origins launching rockets in the South Pacific, SpaceX progressed within a decade to supplying the International Space Station and securing lucrative contracts with NASA. Vance highlights how Musk built buzz around space by attracting star talent and recapturing public excitement over space exploration.

Refreshingly, Vance’s book does not shy away from recounting Musk’s less successful ventures like the Hyperloop transit concept and SolarCity. But the author makes the case that such ideas, even where flawed, still expand our sense of what is possible. Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future argues that its subject should be judged based on his record of genuinely disrupting industries more than whether each individual project succeeds.

In terms of critical reception, Musk himself has been known to criticize books about him as inaccurate or unbalanced. But Vance’s biography has received praise for capturing the complexity of its subject while still communicating his world-changing ambitions in accessible detail. Vance benefited from being the first biographer with insider access to Musk’s family and trusted allies like technology investor Peter Thiel.

For skeptics, Vance perhaps leans too credulous toward his subject and does not fully probe the darker sides of Musk’s character. Some criticize omissions around thornier topics like Musk’s first marriage. The book’s narrow focus on its protagonist also leaves open questions about the broader ecosystem making Musk’s success possible. But overall, Vance delivers an energetic portrayal of a contradictory genius while avoiding hagiography.

Elon Musk remains the most insightful glimpse into Silicon Valley’s most unconventional innovator. Vance sheds light on Musk’s late night engineering sessions, high-stakes meetings with investors, and heated clashes with critics who dismissed his goals as impossible. Five years after its release, the biography still stands out as uniquely probing, engrossing, and definitive. Vance offers readers the tools to make their own judgments about Musk while convincingly making the case for his place in the pantheon of inventors who showed us that the future can look radically different from the past.