'94: Musk founds Zip2 along with Kimbal and Greg Kouri. Musk's investment was the PC.
Every now and then, the old lie, "Martin Eberhard founded Tesla, Elon Musk stole it from him!" crops up.
Facts matter, so let's break down the actual timeline.
'94: Musk does a summer internship developing advanced capacitors in hopes of being able to use them for EVs.
'94: Musk founds Zip2 along with Kimbal and Greg Kouri. Musk's investment was the PC.
'97: Gage starts tzero construction. Cocconi further develops the powertrain.
Spring '98: Straubel receives BS in Energy Systems Engineering from Stanford
Feb. '99: Compaq purchases Zip2 for $305M. Elon earns $22M.
Nov '99: Musk founds https://t.co/FaUDDd5T0X.
Mar '00: * Straubel receives M.S. in Energy Engineering from Stanford. * https://t.co/FaUDDd5T0X merges with Confinity to form PayPal. * The dotcom bubble peaks.
Disillusioned, he starts preparing to establish his own rocket company instead. * GM starts crushing recalled EV1s
Mar '03: Steve Casner, a coworker of Eberhard‘s, is Gage‘s neighbor. Introduces them. Eberhard decides to fund the conversion of the tzero to li-ion.
Jun '03: Eberhard and Tarpenning incorporate Tesla Motors to pursue the tzero.
Designer of the SpaceX logo designs the Tesla logo
Musk becomes chairman, Eberhard remains CEO.
Feb '06: Musk leads the Series B round ($13M), adding Valor Investment Partners to the team
Mar '06: First Falcon 1 launch; engine failure at T+33s.
Jul '06: Roadster unveiled to the public
Mar '07: Second Falcon 1 launch; failed due to harmonic oscillation at T+5m leading to engine shutdown at T+7:30
May '07: Based on rumours within the company, Musk starts to question Eberhard‘s claims in his business plan that the cars will only cost $65k to produce. Eberhard assures him that while the initial...
Jul '07: A new investor doing an audit of Tesla‘s supply chain finds that the unit cost of the Roadster after the...
The board loses confidence in Eberhard. He is forced to step down as CEO; becomes „President of Technology“. Marks becomes interim CEO.
Nov '07: The board discovers that Eberhard has been hiding negative information from them (including reportedly stating, in response to higher costs: "If this is true, you and I are both fired.").
Drori replaces Marks as CEO.
Feb '08: First Roadster delivery
Oct '08: Musk replaces Drori as CEO; lays off 25% of the company. Drori becomes vice chairman.
Mar '09: Daimler buys a <10% stake in Tesla for $50M, reportedly saving the company.
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