Ashlee Vance

Ashlee Vance (born 1977) is an American reporter, writer and filmmaker. He wrote a biography of Elon Musk, titled Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, that was released on May 19, 2015.

Early life and education
Vance was born in 1977 in South Africa. He attended Pomona College, graduating in 2000.

Career
Vance wrote for The Register from March 2003 to August 2008. He moved to The New York Times in September 2008 and then to Bloomberg Businessweek in January 2011.

During his time at The Register, Vance covered companies such as IBM, HP, Intel, and Dell, and also wrote about a wide range of technology topics, including robots, Segway scooters, and the R programming language. In 2007, Vance wrote a book, called Geek Silicon Valley, on the history of Silicon Valley. His writing often also appeared in such publications as The Economist, Chicago Tribune, CNN.com, The Globe and Mail, the International Herald Tribune, and CNET.

Vance hosted an audio podcast called Semi-Coherent Computing from 2007–2008, in which he discussed enterprise computing topics such as data center cooling and blade servers, and interviewed guests including chip pioneer David Ditzel of Transmeta, Sun Microsystems, and Bell Labs.

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 Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX 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 May of 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, Rocket Lab, Astra Space and Firefly Aerospace. It also became an immediate best-seller. A documentary inspired by the book, Wild Wild Space was released in July 2024, by HBO.

Vance is currently working on a TV series based on his Elon Musk book for HBO

He lives in California with his wife Melinda and their two children. Vance calls himself an atheist.