The Tesla Files cover art

The Tesla Files

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

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The Tesla Files

By: Sönke Iwersen, Michael Verfürden
Narrated by: Mark Elstob
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About this listen

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

 Business Business Ethics Engineering Professionals & Academics Workplace & Organisational Behavior Heartfelt Inspiring

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All stars
Most relevant
What a book and what revelations. The richest man in the world can do what he likes and get away with anything.
God help us.
This is a must read for anybody who cares about the future of the human race.

Proof that Money=Power

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Thorough and fascinating, I've been a Tesla fan for a long time this book is like that feeling when you start working at your dream company and you suddenly learn that everything is held together by string and that politics and optics are more important than engineering.

You can have the future today but at what price

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Interesting insight into how the company operates. Entertaining and informative. I would recommend this if you are interested in the Tesla company

Interesting and good value

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fast-paced and very digestible. Shocking from first to last page and bang up to date. motivates me to read the original published articles. Good description of Musk and many voices of low paid staff (Musk and Tesla) but where is the story of the senior managers, execs and board members who are also implicated? The safety stuff is mind-blowing. what are UK regulators doing about cars that burn with doors locked? I was keen on the concept of autonomous vehicles until this forced me to think about what kind of people might be controlling them

Riveting expose of genius, madness and risk to all we hold dear

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A factual read, very well presented. I was astonished about how much about Elon and Tesla I still didn’t know. The inside workings of the company, the code of ethics or lack of, is astonishing. The holes in employee and customer privacy protection makes me feel lucky for never purchasing a Tesla car or working in this company. It sounds like it’s run by complete cowboys: rules are being perceived merely as something that will slow the big boss and the progress down. Anything that is sacrificed in the Elon’s vision of “progress”, the definition of “collateral damage”, is redefined by this man and painted in the darkest of ways.

Eye opening, eerie and educational. Paints a picture of Elon Musk and his personality probably more than any autobiography would. Highly recommend.

Interesting and well researched

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