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• Elon Musk shoots again against Tesla founder Eberhard
• Doubts about founding definition
• Mutual allegations for years
Zip2, PayPal, SpaceX, The Boring Company and Neuralink have been co-founded or co-founded by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk. But at the company with which the name Musk is most often associated, the electric car manufacturer Tesla, the top manager only joined after the company was founded. The founders here are the American electrical engineer Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, who started Tesla Motors Incorporated in 2003. Like Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Musk was an investor on board in the early stages of the company and acted as a venture capitalist. Together with Jeffrey Brian Straubel, Musk invested 27 million dollars in Tesla and, as the largest investor, also acquired a say in the development of the then still young startup.
Eberhard is suing Musk and Tesla
The fact that the two company founders Eberhard and Tarpenning left Tesla a few years later is said to be due to the efforts of Elon Musk, as Martin Eberhard in particular explained after his Tesla retirement. The co-founder even sued his former company in 2009, accusing Musk of defamation, slander and breach of contract, breach of duty of care and non-payment of stocks and salaries. Musk, who was already Tesla boss at the time, would have damaged Eberhard’s reputation and spread false information that Eberhard was responsible for the production delays in the Roadster model. In the end, Musk pushed him out of the company, the indictment said. In addition, Eberhard also got personal with Musk and accused him of frequently making false statements – including about his academic achievements.
Disputes between Tesla executives keep flaring up
Since then, Elon Musk has repeatedly approached the co-founder of Tesla, especially on his preferred communication platform Twitter. When Eberhard was relieved of his position as Tesla CEO in mid-2007 for making false statements to Musk and the board, no one went with him. “That says it all,” Musk said in 2020.
When Eberhard was fired from the Tesla CEO role in mid 2007 for providing false information to me & the board, no one left with him. That says it all.
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 11, 2020
Musk also repeatedly criticized Eberhard for describing himself as the founder of Tesla. Eberhard has been “unshakeably spreading the wrong narrative for 15 years,” Musk recently said on Twitter.
Eberhard has been relentlessly pushing a false narrative about Tesla for 15 years. He’s a compelling liar. Fooled me for almost 3 years.
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 21, 2022
Everything Tesla was back then was a letterbox company – without employees, designs or prototypes. In fact, there was only one business plan. In addition, it is also wrong that Musk was brought on board by Eberhard as a financier – JB Straubel brought the current Tesla boss on board. Owning a shell company is not the same as starting a company, Eberhard is an “impressive liar” who has betrayed Musk “for three years”, the current Tesla CEO continued.
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!
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 21, 2022
If Eberhard had actually been capable of launching a company like Tesla, he would have been able to prove it after his resignation in 2007. “If he was that great, we would have at least some talented people [an ihn, Anm. d. Red.] lost. But we haven’t lost anyone,” Musk said, referring to his earlier allegations.
But if he was actually capable of creating a company like Tesla, he would have done so after he was fired for lying outrageously about cost & progress of Roadster in mid 2007.
We would’ve lost at least a few talented people if he was the real deal, but we lost no one.
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 21, 2022
Eberhard remains loyal to the car industry and startups
In fact, after leaving Tesla, Eberhard kept appearing in the automotive industry and as a company founder. After a two-year stint at Volkswagen, where he worked as an electric car developer in North America, he founded inEVit, a startup that develops electric drive technology for car manufacturers. The company was sold to Seres in 2017, where Eberhard worked as Chief Strategy Officer for around a year. He also invests in startups with Tesla co-founder Marc Tarpenning. According to his LinkedIn profile, Eberhard has been officially retired since the beginning of the year.
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