'Power Play' review: The story of Tesla and the drive of Elon Musk

To the inevitable disappointment of some and the relief of others, "Power Play" is a book about Tesla, not about its founder Elon MuskDon't fret: Musk is always part of the story, contributing his own brand of drama to keep things moving along. But in this book, the self-anointed "TechnoKing" (his actual job title at Tesla) serves not as main character but dramatic foil to those doing their best under chaotic, dysfunctional conditions.

One is J.B. Straubel, the Stanford engineer who teamed with Musk to take over the original Tesla, founded in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Musk was the money man, Straubel the brains behind the battery technology. Straubel departed Tesla in 2019 after the board of directors agreed to a pay plan that has made Musk one of the richest people on the planet.

Another key player who gets his due here is Sterling Anderson, the self-driving-car pioneer who headed Tesla's Autopilot project, only to quit after Musk rejected his push for driver-monitoring technology to keep people safe.

Dozens more are noted, most of them witnesses to or victims of the rage and wrath of Musk, a hair trigger of an executive who's quick to fire people whether they deserve it or not.

On the floor of Tesla's Fremont, California, factory, a line worker told Musk he'd invented a way to fix a car window's screeching sound by making an incision on the door seal. Musk turned on manufacturing executive John Ensign in a rage: "This is unacceptable that you had a person working in your factory that knows the solution and you don't even know that!" Ensign was fired.

Musk's approach to many manufacturing issues was, and still appears to be, keeping the assembly line moving while line problems are being fixed. He's not a fan of the Toyota method, where a worker can stop the line until the problem is solved. He's all about the volume.

That may be one reason why the quality of Teslas is so variable — why buying one can feel like a crapshoot. Some owners report their car is perfect; some say they were sold a piece of junk. (Including Kristen Wiig and Avi Rothman.)

In fact, Toyota ended a partnership with Tesla over such issues. "Musk was willing to let some quality issues slide if addressing them meant slowing down their schedule," Higgins reports.

There's no question that Tesla has earned a prominent place in motor vehicle history under Musk. He showed that stylish, fast and fun electric cars would prove popular. The Model S sold in sufficient numbers to prompt regulators to begin ordering phaseouts of gasoline and diesel cars. The Volkswagen diesel-cheat scandal and the bankruptcies of General Motors and Chrysler weakened auto industry clout. Now everybody's spending billions on an EV transition.

Still, the company has a long way to go. Tesla did deliver just shy of 500,000 cars last year, but that's still less than 1% of the world market. Tesla profits today come mostly from sales of emissions credits to other automakers and $10,000-per-customer payments for "full self-driving" technology — which, Musk admitted in a recent analyst call, doesn't work.

Some call Musk a genius. When it comes to fundraising, he's in a class by himself. Tesla's skirted bankruptcy at least twice. The company would not be alive today without continued infusions of debt and equity. But a showman can only paper over serious long-term challenges for so long.

In 2016, Musk promised that a self-driving car, a Tesla semi truck and a new, possibly jet-powered roadster were imminent. None are remotely close to production. .Musk's side hustles are doing no better: His underground tunnel project is just a tourist attraction in Las Vegas. He faked an innovative solar roof tile in 2016 before Tesla bailed out SolarCity, a company owned by Musk's cousins. He promised a million robotaxis by the end of 2020. So far there are none.

And then there's Musk's fake "funding secured" buyout announcement in 2018 that earned him a wrist-slap fine from the Securities Exchange Commission on charges of fraud.

Musk apparently did not participate in the creation of "Power Play." In an author's note at the end, Higgins writes that Musk "was given numerous opportunities to comment on the stories, facts, and characterizations presented in these pages. Without pointing to any specific inaccuracies, he offered simply this: 'Most, but not all, of what you read in this book is nonsense.'"

Sorry to disagree with Musk, but if there's any nonsense in "Power Play," Higgins isn't the source of it.