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‘Not even close’: Elon Musk sets the record straight on Tesla’s founding after false claims

April 21, 2022 | | Print Article

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Ever since Elon Musk made it known that he is seeking to buy Twitter in the name of free speech, the blue-check brigade on that social media platform has tried to raise doubts about him in various ways.

The latest salvo perhaps comes from tech entrepreneur Vaibhav Sisinty who “reminded” his followers (and without tagging him) that the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, and mastermind behind several other high-tech enterprises, “acquired” the former rather than founding it.

Despite everything on his plate, the world’s richest man seems to carefully watch his mentions.

“Not even close,” Musk succinctly responded in what some are describing as an epic mic drop moment, after apparently getting wind of the tweet.

It’s not entirely clear if the often-cryptic Musk is primarily responding to the initial tweet or the one that followed.

With his usual online elan, he launched a thread, however, in explaining that there is a lot more to the Tesla, Inc., story.

This discourse occurred after another user, who appears to be a Musk fan and who dismissed the implied criticism, chimed in that the quirky and visionary billionaire “changed the business model, raised significant money, forged new technology and created a wholly new industry. That is what founders do.”

“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!,” Musk asserted about the electric car company.

“If filing a shell corp constitutes ‘founding a company,’ then I’d be the only founder of PayPal, since I filed the original incorporation docs for X.com (later renamed PayPal), but that’s not what founding means,” Musk’s history and vocabulary lessons continued.

“When Eberhard was fired unanimously by the board in July 2007 (for damn good reasons), no one left with him. That says it all. They say history is written by the victors, but not on Wikipedia if the losing party is still alive & has lots of time on their hands!”

According to various reports, Martin Eberhard was one of the original co-founders of Tesla, Inc. and its first CEO.

When another Twitter account asked Musk why lots of people are unaware of the origin story, the tech titan contended the following:

“Eberhard has been relentlessly pushing a false narrative about Tesla for 15 years. He’s a compelling liar. Fooled me for almost 3 years. 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.”

During a January 2020 podcast, Musk claimed that Eberhard “is literally the worst person I’ve ever worked with.”

Sisinty, who inadvertently seemed to get the ball rolling here in the above thread, may not necessarily be an Elon Musk critic. In a separate tweet, he seemed to praise Musk as a strong leader with the capacity to “tap into Twitter’s true potential.”

On Tuesday, reacting to the erosion of Netflix’s customer base, Musk declared that the streaming service is becoming unwatchable because its content is metaphorically infected “with the woke mind virus.”

According to CNBC, Musk, who already owns about a nine percent stake, may be closer than ever to adding Twitter to his ownership portfolio:

Elon Musk is exploring whether to commence a tender offer for Twitter, according to a new securities filing. In an updated filing published Thursday, Musk said that given the lack of response from Twitter’s board, he is now exploring a tender offer to purchase some or all shares of the company directly from its stockholders. The filing says Musk has received commitments for $46.5 billion to help finance the potential deal…Last week, Musk offered to buy Twitter for $54.20 a share, or about $43 billion. On Friday, Twitter adopted a limited duration shareholder rights plan, often referred to as a ‘poison pill,’ in an effort to fend off a potential hostile takeover…

 

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Robert Jonathan
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