Tesla's (TSLA) success is indisputable.
The manufacturer of electric vehicles and solar panels, founded in 2003, is valued at more than $1 trillion on the stock market. The company managed to produce nearly a million vehicles in 2021 and expects to turn out 1.5 million in 2022, CEO Elon Musk said during the first quarter earnings call.
These figures make Tesla the world leader in the electric vehicle market. But behind the scenes, a debate has just been revived by Musk. It focuses on the founders behind the success story. On April 14, during a Ted Talk interview, the serial entrepreneur was asked the following question by interviewer Chris Anderson.
"If you could go back in time and change one decision you made along the way...any decision over the last few years, like your decision to invest in Twitter in the first place, anything?"
'Tesla Was a Shell Company'
"The worst business decision I ever made was not starting Tesla with just JB Straubel. By far the worst decision I've ever made is not just starting Tesla with JB. That's number one by far," the billionaire responded, referring to Tesla's longtime chief technology officer, who left the company in 2019.
"There's a lot of confusion," Musk continued. "Tesla was a shell company with no employees, no intellectual property when I invested, but a false narrative has been created by one of the other co-founders, Martin Eberhard. I don't want to get into the nastiness here, but I didn't invest in a company. We created a company. And ultimately, the company was done by JB and me. Unfortunately, there's someone else, another co-founder, who made it his life's mission to make it sound like he created the company, which is false."
As we can see, the question of who founded Tesla is a hot topic that torments Musk. , A few days later the richest man in the world was quick to continue the debate on Twitter, which he has just acquired.
On April 21, a Twitter user posted a message suggesting that Musk did not found Tesla but rather bought it.
"Elon Musk was not the founder of Tesla. He acquired it. Just reminding :)," the user wrote.
Another user then replied. Obviously, the latter is a Musk fan since he came to the tech tycoon's defense by making clear that without Musk, Tesla would have long ago disappeared.
"Semantics. He invested in a glorified kitset car manufacturer with unworkable tech. He fired the founder before the company died," this user said. "Then he changed the business model, raised significant money, forged new technology and created a wholly new industry. That is what founders do."
'Judgement of Solomon'
It was at this point that the mogul himself intervened to stress the argument his fan put forward.
"Not even close to that. It was a shell corp with no employees, no IP, no designs, no prototype, literally nothing but a biz plan to commercialize AC Propulsion’s Tzero car, which was introduced to me by JB Straubel, *not* Eberhard.
Even name “Tesla Motors” was owned by others!"
He continued:
"If filing a shell corp constitutes “founding a company”, then I’d be the only founder of PayPal, since I filed the original incorporation docs for http://X.com (later renamed PayPal), but that’s not what founding means."
Faced with this heated debate, the billionaire made the point that he put in everything he had for Tesla, unlike his rivals, in particular Eberhard, Tesla's first CEO, who was forced to step down in November 2007.
"I put in all I had, whereas Eberhard, who was worth over $10M at the time, refused to invest a penny to help Tesla," Musk added. "If it was really his baby, he would never have stood by while it starved to death."
Musk accompanied this last message with the painting "Judgement of Solomon" from the French painter Nicolas Poussin. "Judgement of Solomon" illustrates a dramatic story of biblical inspiration, especially from the Old Testament (I Kings 3: 16-28).
Two women seek justice from King Solomon. They each have a child of the same age, but one died by accidental suffocation during his sleep. Each affirms that the living child is hers.
Solomon announced that the child should be cut in two, so that each mother should have half. The real mother, unable to bear her son being killed, immediately offered it to the other woman, to save the child's life, whereas the other agreed to the proposal. The false mother was thus exposed, and Solomon returned the living child to its real mother.
There is no doubt that Musk, who tweeted about "Judgement of Solomon" at almost 5 a.m., believes he is the real father of child Tesla.
Attempts to reach Eberhard were unsuccessful. According to his LinkedIn page, he retired in January from most of his professional activities.
"Enjoying Life," Eberhard wrote as his new "job." "Retired · Full-time."
Previously he'd remained active in the electric battery sector. Eberhard briefly led the development of electric vehicles for Volkswagen (VWAGY) in the U.S. and was also part of the team behind Atieva, now Lucid Motors (LCID), one of Tesla's fiercest rivals.
Litigation
Tesla was founded in 2003 by a group of engineers who wanted to prove that people didn’t need to compromise to drive electric -- that electric vehicles could be better, quicker and more fun to drive than gasoline cars, the company said on its website without naming the "engineers."
While no one disputes what Musk did with Tesla, it must be recognized that the original founders of the automotive group are Martin Eberhard and his friend and business partner, Marc Tarpenning.
Legend has it that Eberhard's passion for sports cars led to the birth of Tesla. He is said to have asked AC Propulsion to manufacture a vehicle with lithium-ion cells instead of one with lead-acid batteries. He wanted an electric sports vehicle but there was none. This later led to the Tesla Roadster.
But Eberhard was fired by Tesla in November 2007 and replaced by Musk. When he left, the Model S sedan was in an early stage. The company now has four models -- the Model S sedan, Model 3 sedan, Model X SUV and Model Y SUV.
Eberhard filed a lawsuit against Tesla and Musk in May 2009, challenging the billionaire's right to call himself the founder of Tesla.
A settlement among the parties was reached in September 2009. According to the confidential settlement, Eberhard and Musk said that they co-founded Tesla with three other people -- J.B. Straubel, Marc Tarpenning and Ian Wright. All three have left the company.
