The Tesla Files

A whistleblower, a leak, a fight for truth: The Inside Story of Musk's Empire

De: Sönke Iwersen, Michael Verfürden

Narrado por: Mark Elstob

Brought to you by Penguin.

A whistleblower.
A 100BG-leak of confidential internal documents.

This is the story of the fight to expose the truth of Tesla.

Elon Musk is one of the wealthiest people in the world. Tesla made him a 300-times billionaire. Starlink turned him into a force in global conflicts. X became his personal megaphone, stoking political turmoil at the touch of a button. With SpaceX, he aims to conquer the stars.

But a whistleblower, a 100GB-leak of confidential Tesla documents and two investigative journalists reveal the frightening truth behind the façade: an unusually high number of workplace accidents in Musk’s factories, dangerous errors in Tesla's autopilot software, a culture of fear and deception, and countless broken promises.

Investigative journalists Sönke Iwersen and Michael Verfürden take readers behind the shiny surface of Tesla. Through their chilling analysis of internal Tesla data and court documents set alongside the astonishing first-hand accounts of employees, customers and their bereaved families, The Tesla Files reveals a corporation in crisis. At its heart a billionaire who truly believes the world is his for the taking.

The definitive exposé of the world’s most powerful businessman and the rise and fall of his empire.

© Michael Verfürden, Sönke Iwersen 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Interesting read, but very biased

Book is based on great journalistic reporting and documents the investigative process very well. However, the book reads as a rant of a diesel-driving german.

The anti-Elon bias is extremely thick. More than a third of the book focuses on Elon’s politics, Trump, Elon’s personal life and other companies.

Even the Tesla part of the book is biased: there’s nothing good about the cars, nobody buys them, in short you’re better off buying a diesel VW.

It’s a shame, as the rest of the investigative journalism is solid, well documented and raises extremely valid points; would have made a 5 star book to leave it there.

The reading performance of the book also exhibits the bias, with imitation of Elon’s voice, it makes no attempt at impartiality.