• Elon Musk fires again at Tesla founder Eberhard
• Doubts about the founding definition
• Mutual accusations for years
Zip2, PayPal, SpaceX, The Boring Company and Neuralink were co-founded or co-founded by the richest man in the world, Elon Musk. But at the company Musk is most often associated with, electric car maker Tesla, the top manager only joined after the company was founded. The founders here are American electrical engineer Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, who founded Tesla Motors Incorporated in 2003. Like Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Musk was an early-stage onboard investor of the company and acted as a venture capitalist. Along with Jeffrey Brian Straubel, Musk invested $ 27 million in Tesla and, as the largest investor, also gained a say in the development of the then 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 specifically explained after his retirement from Tesla. The co-founder even sued his former company in 2009, accusing Musk of libel, slander and breach of contract, breach of duty of care, and non-payment of stock and salaries. Musk, who was already head of Tesla at the time, allegedly damaged Eberhard’s reputation and spread false information that Eberhard was responsible for the production delays of the Roadster model. Eventually, Musk pushed him out of the company, the indictment said. Additionally, Eberhard also had personal relationships with Musk and accused him of frequently making false claims, including about his academic achievements.
Disputes between Tesla executives continue to flare up
Since then, Elon Musk has approached Tesla co-founder multiple times, especially on his favorite communication platform Twitter. When Eberhard was relieved of Tesla’s CEO position in mid-2007 for making false statements to Musk and his board, no one went with him. “That says it all,” Musk said in 2020.
When Eberhard was fired from his role as CEO of Tesla in mid-2007 for providing false information to me and the board, no one walked away with him. This says it all.
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 11 October 2020
Musk has also repeatedly criticized Eberhard for describing himself as the founder of Tesla. Eberhard has “been spreading adamantly 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 is an irresistible liar. He has been deceiving me for almost 3 years.
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 21, 2022
Everything Tesla was then was a letterbox company, with no employees, designs or prototypes. In reality, there was only one business plan. Furthermore, it is also wrong that Musk was brought aboard by Eberhard as a financier: JB Straubel brought the current Tesla boss aboard. Owning a shell company is not the same as starting a company, Eberhard is an “impressive liar” who betrayed Musk “for three years,” continued Tesla’s current CEO.
Not even close to that. It was a shell corp with no employees, no IP, no design, no prototype, literally nothing more than a business plan to commercialize AC Propulsion’s Tzero car, which was introduced to me by JB Straubel, * not * Eberhard.
Even the name “Tesla Motors” was owned by others!
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 21, 2022
If Eberhard had actually been able to launch a company like Tesla, he could have proved it after his resignation in 2007. “If he were that great, we would at least have talented people. [an ihn, Anm. d. Red.] lost. But we didn’t lose anyone, ”Musk said, referring to his earlier allegations.
But if he had actually been able to create a company like Tesla, he would have done so after being fired for lying scandalously about the Roadster’s costs and progress in mid-2007.
We would have lost at least a few talented people if he had been the real deal, but we haven’t lost anyone.
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 21, 2022
Eberhard remains loyal to the auto industry and startups
Indeed, after leaving Tesla, Eberhard continued to appear in the auto industry and as the founder of the company. 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 automakers. The company was sold to Seres in 2017, where Eberhard served as Chief Strategy Officer for about 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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