Ashlee Vance is an American reporter, writer, and filmmaker. He is known for his 2015 biography of

Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a businessman. He is known for his leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, X (formerly Twitter), and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk has been considered the wealthiest person in th ...

, titled '' Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future''.

Early life and education

Ashlee Vance was born in South Africa, and grew up mostly in the state of

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

in the United States. He attended

Pomona College Pomona College ( ) is a private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Claremont, California. It was established in 1887 by a group of Congregationalism in the United States, Congregationalists ...

Claremont, California Claremont () is a suburban city in eastern Los Angeles County, California, United States, east of Los Angeles. It lies in the Pomona Valley at the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. As of the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census it had ...

, graduating in 2000.

Career

Vance wrote for ''

The Register ''The Register'' (often also called El Reg) is a British Technology journalism, technology news website co-founded in 1994 by Mike Magee (journalist), Mike Magee and John Lettice. The online newspaper's Nameplate_(publishing), masthead Logo, s ...

'' from March 2003 to August 2008. He moved to ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' in September 2008 and then to

Bloomberg Businessweek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'' (and before that ''Business Week'' and ''The Business Week''), is an American monthly business magazine published 12 times a year. The magazine debuted in New York City in Septembe ...

in January 2011. During his time at ''The Register'', Vance covered companies such as

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

, HP,

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

, and

Dell Dell Inc. is an American technology company that develops, sells, repairs, and supports personal computers (PCs), Server (computing), servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, computer peripherals including printers and webcam ...

, and also wrote about a wide range of technology topics, including robots,

Segway A Segway is a two-wheeled, self-balancing personal transporter device invented by Dean Kamen. The name is a registered trademark of Segway Inc. It was brought to market in 2001 as the Segway HT, and then subsequently as the Segway PT. ''HT ...

scooters, and the

R programming language R is a programming language for statistical computing and data visualization. It has been widely adopted in the fields of data mining, bioinformatics, data analysis, and data science. The core R language is extended by a large number of so ...

. In 2007, Vance wrote a book, called ''Geek Silicon Valley'', on the history of

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical area of the Santa Clara Valley ...

. His writing often also appeared in such publications as ''

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British newspaper published weekly in printed magazine format and daily on Electronic publishing, digital platforms. It publishes stories on topics that include economics, business, geopolitics, technology and culture. M ...

'', ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and ...

'',

CNN.com Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable new ...

, ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Newspapers in Canada, Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in Western Canada, western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of more than 6 million in 2024, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on week ...

'', the ''

International Herald Tribune The ''International Herald Tribune'' (''IHT'') was a daily English-language newspaper published in Paris, France, for international English-speaking readers. It published under the name ''International Herald Tribune'' starting in 1967, but its ...

'', and CNET. Vance hosted an audio

podcast A podcast is a Radio program, program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. Typically, a podcast is an Episode, episodic series of digital audio Computer file, files that users can download to a personal device or str ...

called ''Semi-Coherent Computing'' from 2007–2008, in which he discussed enterprise computing topics such as

data center A data center is a building, a dedicated space within a building, or a group of buildings used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems. Since IT operations are crucial for busines ...

cooling and

blade server A blade server is a stripped-down server computer with a modular design optimized to minimize the use of physical space and energy. Blade servers have many components removed to save space, minimize power consumption and other considerations, wh ...

s, and interviewed guests including chip pioneer David Ditzel of

Transmeta Transmeta Corporation was an American fabless semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California. It developed low power x86 compatible microprocessors based on a VLIW core and a software layer called Code Morphing Software. Code Morphing ...

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...

, and

Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, commonly referred to as ''Bell Labs'', is an American industrial research and development company owned by Finnish technology company Nokia. With headquarters located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Murray Hill, New Jersey, the compa ...

. In 2015, Vance started writing, producing and hosting the "Hello World" video series for Bloomberg, focusing on the tech scene in various countries. The show was nominated for an Emmy in 2016. In 2015, Vance published his biography about

, the CEO of

Tesla Tesla most commonly refers to: * Nikola Tesla (1856–1943), a Serbian-American electrical engineer and inventor * Tesla, Inc., an American electric vehicle and clean energy company, formerly Tesla Motors, Inc. * Tesla (unit) (symbol: T), the SI-d ...

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an America, American space technology company headquartered at the SpaceX Starbase, Starbase development site in Starbase, Texas. Since its founding in 2002, the compa ...

and other tech companies. The book became an immediate best-seller. Vance says that Musk "really hated some of the things in the book, so we didn't talk for three years." In late 2020, Vance was working on a TV series based on his Elon Musk book for HBO. In May 2023, Vance published ''When the Heavens Went on Sale: The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space within Reach'' about the rise of commercial space. The book focused on

Planet Labs Planet Labs PBC (formerly Planet Labs, Inc. and Cosmogia, Inc.) is a publicly traded American Earth imaging company based in San Francisco, California. Their goal is to image the entirety of the Earth daily to monitor changes and pinpoint tren ...

Rocket Lab Rocket Lab Corporation is a Public company, publicly traded aerospace manufacturer and List of launch service providers, launch service provider. Its Rocket Lab Electron, Electron orbital rocket launches Small satellite, small satellites, and ha ...

, Astra Space and

Firefly Aerospace Firefly Aerospace, Inc. is an American private aerospace firm based in Cedar Park, Texas, that develops small- and medium-lift launch vehicles for commercial launches to orbit. The current company was formed when the assets of the former co ...

. It became an immediate best-seller. A documentary inspired by the book, ''

Wild Wild Space ''Wild Wild Space'' is a 2024 American documentary film, directed by Ross Kauffman. Inspired by the book ''When Heavens Went on Sale'' by Ashlee Vance, it follows the quests of three rocket and satellite companies Astra Space, Rocket Lab, an ...

'' was released in July 2024, by

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...

. At the beginning of 2025, Vance left ''Bloomberg'' to found Core Memory, a new digital media company focused on science and technology. Core Memory has a

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

show, a

, and a

Substack Substack is an American online platform that provides publishing, payment, analytics, and design infrastructure to support subscription-based content, including newsletters, podcasts, and video. It allows writers to send digital content directl ...

newsletter, but also aims to produce production-quality

documentaries A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". The American author and media analyst Bill ...

, the first of which is on brain-computer interfaces and was in production as of January, 2025. He is also working on a book on

OpenAI OpenAI, Inc. is an American artificial intelligence (AI) organization founded in December 2015 and headquartered in San Francisco, California. It aims to develop "safe and beneficial" artificial general intelligence (AGI), which it defines ...

, for which he says he has already sold the movie rights.

Personal life

Vance lives in California with his wife and their two children. He is an atheist.

Works

* * *

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Vance, Ashlee Living people 21st-century American biographers 21st-century American journalists 21st-century American male writers American business and financial journalists American male biographers American male journalists Bloomberg L.P. people Pomona College alumni South African emigrants to the United States St. John's School (Texas) alumni The New York Times journalists Year of birth missing (living people)