The Actual Founders Of Tesla Share The Story Of How Tesla Started. If you keep asking yourself how Elon Musk started Tesla, you should firstly know that he didn’t. Tesla was founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning in 2003. Ian Wright was Tesla’s third employee, joining a few months later. The three raised US$7.5 million in series A funding in February 2004 from various investors, including Elon Musk, who contributed $6.5 million. Following the investment, Musk joined the company and became chairman of the board of directors, appointing Eberhard as CEO; J. B. Straubel joined Tesla in May 2004 as the Chief Technical Officer (CTO). A lawsuit settlement agreed to by Eberhard and Tesla in September 2009 allows all five-Eberhard, Tarpenning, Wright, Musk and Straubel – to call themselves co-founders.
Eberhard and Tarpenning’s interview with CNBC shows how much the company and its current cars owe to Eberhard’s love for sports cars and “The Rocket e-Book,” the first e-book reader that he and Tarpenning created in 1998.
Their experience with lithium-ion batteries with that e-book reader made Eberhard ask AC Propulsion to build him a car with lithium-ion cells instead of one with lead-acid batteries, as the company used to produce. Eberhard wanted to buy a new sports car, and he wanted an electric one, which was not for sale at that time, This led them to the idea of them creating one, the car that was created is the one that people call Tesla Roadster now.
In August 2007 Eberhard was asked to step down from his CEO position by the board of directors. Eberhard said he was “voted off the island in a rather rude way” on November 28, 2007. Eberhard then took the title of “President of Technology” before ultimately leaving the company in January 2008. Co-founder Marc Tarpenning, who served as the Vice President of Electrical Engineering of the company, also left the company in January 2008. In August 2007, Michael Marks was brought in as interim CEO, and in December 2007, Ze’ev Drori became CEO and President. Musk succeeded Drori as CEO in October 2008.
Eberhard and Tarpenning were also the masterminds behind the idea of making a desirable sports car, developing a sedan or an SUV with the money earned from that sports car, and scale the company’s increase in volume in a sustainable way. Elon Musk simply took the idea to greater heights when he became the head of the company in 2008. “He’s actually accomplished some amazing things in his own right; SpaceX is amazing. And he’s done some interesting things with Tesla for sure,’ he continued. ‘But I’m not sure why he has to also say that he was a founder when he wasn’t. I don’t understand that.” said Eberhard in an interview with CNBC.
