- In a Twitter thread Sunday, Elon Musk defended his role in Tesla's early history.
- The Tesla CEO took a dig at the electric-car maker's cofounder Martin Eberhard.
Elon Musk Sunday defended his role in Tesla's early history and took a dig at Martin Eberhard, one of the founders of the electric-car maker.
"I was head of product and led the design of the original Roadster," Musk said. "Eberhard was wealthy and could have risked his money, but was unwilling to do so."
The Tesla CEO made the comments in response to a thread on Twitter that said Musk "pushed out" the Tesla founders Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning and "spent the next ten years telling everyone he founded Tesla."
—Sam (@SamTwits) November 26, 2022
The richest man in the world elaborated, saying he received an honorary degree for his work on Tesla's first car, the original Roadster, and credited himself with getting "Tesla Motors" trademarked, as well as the tesla.com URL.
Eberhard told Insider Musk's comments on Tesla's history were "typical" of the billionaire.
"Not one sentence of that tweet is true," Eberhard told Insider. "Why he continues to spew lies about me 15 years after I left Tesla says more about Musk than anything else."
Musk's role in Tesla's early days has been a point of contention in the past. In 2009, Eberhard sued Musk, alleging libel and slander because Musk started calling himself Tesla's founder. That same year, the lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed amount with the condition that Musk and two other Tesla executives, JB Straubel and Ian Wright, could also claim the title of Tesla founder. Today, Musk is listed as a cofounder of Tesla on the carmaker's website.
Eberhard and Tarpenning incorporated the company in 2003. Eberhard came up with the idea for an electric-car startup in 2000 after Tarpenning and he sold their e-book company, NuvoMedia, for $187 million, Drake Baer reported for Insider in 2014.
"I was thinking that I should do what every guy does and buy a sports car," Eberhard told Insider in 2014. "I couldn't bring myself to buy a car that got 18 miles to the gallon at a time when wars in the Middle East seemed to somehow involve oil and the arguments for global warming were becoming undeniable."
Not long after, Tesla was founded.
Musk, who had money when PayPal sold to Ebay, stepped in to lead the upstart's Series A funding round in 2004, contributing $6.5 million and joining Tesla's board as chair after Eberhard pitched Tesla to him over email as "a company with very high potential for growth" that could break "the compromise between driving performance and efficiency," Baer reported.
The company debuted its first car in 2006, generating a media blitz that labeled Eberhard as "Mr. Tesla." At the time, Musk appeared to take offense at the lack of media coverage around his involvement in Tesla and even threatened to sever ties with the company's press-relations firm over the stories. Eberhard told Baer it was the first time he butted heads with Musk.
It was far from the last.
Musk, who officially became CEO of the company in 2008, has repeatedly disparaged Eberhard. Last year, Musk said Eberhard was "by far the worst person I've ever worked with in my entire career," adding that the cofounder came "close to killing Tesla."
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