Book Review: Elon Musk

It’s tough to write an interesting book about a boring topic (I mean, I’ll be surprised if you have voraciously read a book on tax accounting or the history of sewing machines). On the other hand, when you are dealing with a polarizing figure such as Elon Musk whose ventures are on the verge of revamping relatively static industries (i.e electricity, auto, & space), it’s tough to write a boring book about that topic.

I enjoyed reading Ashlee Vance’s Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future end to end. Vance begins the story with Elon’s tough childhood and it’s influence on him. We proceed to learn in detail about Musk’s move to the Canada and then the US, his early business ventures, work with PayPal, and of course his captainship of the SpaceX and Tesla vessels. Vance rounds out the biography by offering his take on Musk’s unifying vision for the future of mankind, which motivates him to bust his tail night in and night out. I think that a lot of the value from this book comes from observing Elon Musk’s behaviors, unparalleled drive as a businessman, and his quirks as a person. The media doesn’t give you the full picture of how damn rigorous, demanding, and persistent this man is in his work.

You may be a supporter of the technologies and mission of SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity, or a critic of Musk’s business tactics. You could also be largely uninformed about Musk apart from what you hear about him in viral blog posts, like I was. Whichever category you fall into, you will likely find Vance’s book an easy and interesting read thanks to the thorough research that has gone behind it (via interviews with Musk and his business and personal acquaintances). It is also a fairly easy read comprehensible to the average reader despite some of its topics being highly technical, as is the nature of SpaceX and Tesla. The book is not 100% unbiased as Vance seems to be charmed by Musk and the technology that he is pioneering. However, we do get an inside look into the history of Elon Musk and both the positive and negative publicity that he has received in the last decade or so.

Read for yourself and decide where you stand on Musk’s quest for a fantastic future.