Lecture & Talk: Sönke Iwersen & Michael Verfürden - The Tesla Files

Revelations from the realm of Elon Musk

Long celebrated as a gift to humanity, the e-car manufacturer Tesla now seems like a threat to many citizens. The two investigative journalists have taken a look behind the scenes. Their book shows a company out of control - with an irascible, unpredictable man at the helm.

Elon Musk is one of the richest and most influential men in the world. With his intelligence service X, he manipulates public debates. His satellite network influences the war in Ukraine. The SpaceX company is intended to pave the way for the colonization of space. But Musk's showpiece is Tesla. n this book, Sönke Iwersen and Michael Verfürden tear down the Tesla façade. Their book is a report on a company that is toxically focused on a single man. What drives Musk and how he pushes his more than one hundred thousand employees in front of him reads like a warning. Musk is prepared to make any sacrifice to achieve his goals.

SönkeIwersen is the head of the Investigative section at Handelsblatt. He is a three-time winner of the Guardian Prize, received the Kurt Tucholsky Prize for Literary Journalism in 2017 and the German Reporter Prize in 2020.

Michael Verfürden has been an editor at Handelsblatt since 2020. Verfürden studied German and political science in Düsseldorf before graduating from the Georg von Holtzbrinck School for Business Journalists.