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Well, isnt this exactly that movie The Founder with Michael Keaton. I guess if you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you'd have invented Facebook Oh wait
"Not a co-founder" camp. The popular "Ship of Theseus" debate of if someone helped provide important financial or strategic feedback early, influences decisions or drive ideas early in a companies life before a name becomes a name get credit for the companies success? By this logic should AC Propulsion be founders of Telsa? In short no. If AC Propulsion had taken Martin and Marc's advice, Martin and Marc would not and should not then become founders of AC Propulsion either. If they invest in AC Propulsion making the change from custom to mass produce EVs, they would have been important figures in its history but not co-founders. Re-incorporate AC Propulsion with a different name/legal agreement on who is founding the new company...then there is a solid debate. But that isn't what happened at Tesla. In building anything, there are a lot of small to large influences but they don't bring them all together. The leap from AC Propulsion custom EV cars to starting Telsa to mass produce EV cars is the same leap between Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning founding Tesla and Elon's entrance into Telsa. Influence yes, co-founders no.
I believe Elon earned the co-founder title fair and square. And this is an opinion I have formed by not only reading the book “Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson”, but also your video and various other sources. I also want to add the fact that Walter Isaacson didn’t just write the book from Elon’s perspective, he interviewed every single one of the cofounders, and even key employees to form his opinions for the book. Elon was not only the biggest investor capital wise hence earning himself the position of chairman, he also put in a lot of sweat equity for example changing the car door latches to electric, which ended up becoming the symbol for Tesla getting them hundreds of thousands of more sales, he also designed the cars look with the help of his design engineer at SpaceX that was hired for Tesla named Franz von Holzhausen a French designer. He also worked on the dashboard of the car because it looked tacky. The seats were changed according to Elon’s design. The middle console with the huge table and the software it runs was also part Elon’s idea. In fact, the Lotis design was so bad that it couldn’t fit in the engine and the battery cells in a formation that made sense, that was all done by Elon and there’s much much more than that. So in conclusion just because I made an LLC and came up with the idea doesn’t make me a cofounder it’s the amount of capital and sweat that I put into it to make it successful is what makes me the cofounder. The original founders were incompetent of making it happen, which is why they were as good as old news and Elon came out on the winning end. You also need to keep in mind Elon understands the technology in a very technical way aside from being the biggest investor. He was a coder and physics major first, who was also acting as the Chief Rocket Propulsion Engineer for SpaceX at the time, who became the biggest investor in Tesla and not the other way around like the vast majority of investors. So he really knew his stuff before joining Tesla. After that as we all know the rest is history.
I believe Elon earned the co-founder title fair and square. And this is an opinion I have formed by not only reading the book “Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson”, but also your video and various other sources. I also want to add the fact that Walter Isaacson didn’t just write the book from Elon’s perspective, he interviewed every single one of the cofounders, and even key employees to form his opinions for the book. Elon was not only the biggest investor capital wise hence earning himself the position of chairman, he also put in a lot of sweat equity for example changing the car door latches to electric, which ended up becoming the symbol for Tesla getting them hundreds of thousands of more sales, he also designed the cars look with the help of his design engineer at SpaceX that was hired for Tesla named Franz von Holzhausen a French designer. He also worked on the dashboard of the car because it looked tacky. The seats were changed according to Elon’s design. The middle console with the huge table and the software it runs was also part Elon’s idea. In fact, the Lotis design was so bad that it couldn’t fit in the engine and the battery cells in a formation that made sense, that was all done by Elon and there’s much much more than that. So in conclusion just because I made an LLC and came up with the idea doesn’t make me a cofounder it’s the amount of capital and sweat that I put into it to make it successful is what makes me the cofounder. The original founders were incompetent of making it happen, which is why they were as good as old news and Elon came out on the winning end. You also need to keep in mind Elon understands the technology in a very technical way aside from being the biggest investor. He was a coder and physics major first, who was also acting as the chief propulsion engineer for SpaceX at the time, who became the biggest investor in Tesla and not the other way around like the vast majority of investors. So he really knew his stuff before joining Tesla. After that as we all know the rest is history.
Let's not mince words, from what we know, he pays people to boost an account and then streams on said account pretending to be the gamer he's not, and its stupidly obvious.
In a many ways he is. He crafted his media narrative as a genius and a savior when what he did was a collective effort built on other people’s ideas. Where he differed from Musk is Edison didnt trash his own reputation with endless promises that never came to fruition and public behavior you expect from an angry teen with a personality disorder.
@@fauxbro1983 True! I hadn’t thought of it that way. I can only imagine what Tesla would have posted in response. “Hey Tommy. Tell me again how DC is superior to AC.”
No, Elon was not the co-founder in any sense. He did, however have mega ambitions for the company. He was just too shrewd for Martin and Mark. He skill-fully out-manoeuvered them in a board-room coup. Martin and Mark are the true founders of this company.
no , they are not. those who actually led the company to build the factories and produce the first million cars are the founder. both martin and mark had registered the company and named it and that is. they did not have any ability to actually make it produce cars. In fact famously most electric car company failed until elon came along and made Tesla the only electric successful car company.
By shrewd you must mean a piece of sh*t 😅 Funny how people like you are devoid of moral implications of this type of behaviour but to dumb it down for you, think of it like this. What if you got screwed over by Elon the same way?
My thought is that he stole the company. The true founders were naive, especially in allowing him to be chair. That enabled him to backtrack and delay a lot of processes and introduce some that would mess up manufacturing in my opinion. In business, delay costs money. If you're having yo produce your own exotic parts that is a recipe for disaster over a company that is optimised for similar parts. Costs for 140 people at even 500 /wk would be around 70k. With other overhears I'd say they were burning perhaps 100k / wk. I think that forensic accounting and scrutiny might need to be applied to that story. Bannon dropped a dime saying that he was evil. If as they say, it takes one to know one, I doubt that there are many that are more qualified to call it.😅
He's also not THE engineer that came up with ALL technological solutions at Tesla, despite claiming that he is. In fact: Elon Musk isn't even a certified engineer. What Musk is, is a salesman who had an uncanny ability to sniff out companies that had the potential to make it big. And I use the past tense deliberately, because Musk seems to have lost his touch the moment he started sniffing his own farts and declared himself a genius.
Mush is just like Edison, who took credit for other people's work(including Nikola Tesla's), and patents these ideas as his own. Con-Artist, and even his kids have said so.
Maybe, but they were incompetent and basically committed fraud with how they lied to the board. Tesla ended up being 100% better long term without them.
@@13thbiosphere it shouldn't take a conartist to make a company work. The roadster was a lotus elise with electric motor conversion kit, Tesla was effectively a kit-car company. Tesla would likely still exist and maybe even made real innovation instead of being a fad- the Apple of electric cars.
@@Azerkeux the majority of people disagree with you're definitely in the minority ... obviously you're not a great researcher you don't know what you're talking about I don't agree with Elon about everything but mostly the guy works like a machine
@chazzatheninja no none off them said he was a Ian is not said he pitch to Elon he became the first investor plus how can he be a Co founder if the project had already started way before he joins and I hate one stop ✋️ system that's too much power 🔋 I don't hate or like him but I don't like it when ppl take credit off other ppl is work or try to change history
Sometimes it takes a leader who can motivate snd/or manipulate investors and employees. What I don’t get is that Elon’s communication skills are lackluster and yet people trip over themselves to ensure they don’t miss a word. When I try to sell an idea, I get this response “get away from me you creep” or “ stranger danger” 😖🤮😹
When I think of "founded a company" I think, "if you take this person away from it all together, does the company still exist?" If you take Elon away from Tesla, the company might have succeeded - they would have needed funding, but the idea existed. If you take those guys away from Tesla and just leave Elon, you have a bag of money and nothing to invest in. Was he instrumental in their success? Sure. He may have had significant contributions (other than funding) after he became involved with the company. I just don't consider him a founder or co-founder (based on the content in this video).
That’s how I see it. It’s possible they could have gotten funding from the next billionaire on the list. Surely Musk wasn’t the only rich person with a passing interest in EVs.
Notably mentioned around 15:00 Mark in this video he talks about Elon bouncing between SpaceX and Tesla and scratching work. They might have had an easier time actually doing work with a full time Chairman who addresses things in real time.
Leon is the conman who takes a helicopter ride to the summit when no one is watching. He gets his photo op and claims to have done the hard work to climb the mountain. When you ask him to name one sherpa he climbed with, he's conveniently forgotten their names.
The question comes to me-does the investor with the most money investing get to be called co-founder. Now Musk is using his money (tax payer’s money) to aggressively and effectively become President of the United States.
I do think this is his goal to somehow be president. After all, it does seem much of the electorate is ok with ignoring parts of the constitution with regard to who is allowed to be president(14th and 25th amendments) when its 'their guy' running.
same thing happened with Mcdonalds. product or service inventors often aren't savvy businessmen & can't raise finance. they aren't managers & not cutthroat enough.
So he basically got away with stealing the company from the original creators because he has lots of money in power. Which is the same thing he's doing with the country right now 😡
@2:37. There is a bid difference between 10% EVs on the road and 10% of Sales. California did surpass 10% EV sales at one point. It will take a while to replace the fleet on the road with any powertrain.
18 дней назад+2
EVs were 23.9% of all car sales as of last quarter.
Yeah, Openai is the peak of success, theres nothing going on that would make one think it will implode soon under Sams leadership.... Hard to type Sarcasm
If this and if that. Truth is - companies are only able to survive based on how passionately involved a person is - no matter the type of idea, project, or who founded it. Apple without Steve Jobs would’ve most likely died like Blackberry or Nokia. Kudos to the original founders of Tesla who started the company but Elon took it to another level, that cannot to denied either.
Unfortunately, with the gamification of financial markets/financial products, stocks, capital, and equity. It's more often the person most willing to commit fraud that succeeds... which the government has been far too lax about holding people accountable for over the last 4 decades.
So as usual he used his money and power to steal from the actual creators of the company. While continuing to profit more and more off of their hard work. Lame ass sorry excuse for a man.
A co-founder is an individual who has his name as a shareholder in an LLC on the day on which the company’s Articles of Association were submitted to the Registrar. Or a shareholder and a Board of Directors member anywhere before the breakeven point as agreed by the other founders.
if u want to be technical, then Court has ruled on it, and that's end of discussion. And if u want to be moral, than this is not even a question, Tesla was a paper incorporation before Musk.
@@StinkPickle4000 you are going out of your way to to say Musk isnt a founder. According to silicon valley practise, he is, according to the court ruling, he is.
@@archigoel Nice try but nope. Musk persued legal remedies so he could claim to be founder and activated his cult to re-write history. Doesn't mean he started the company.
@@sanjaygupta666 But angel investors and VCs have varying amounts of involvement, OPs point is that those term don’t accurately describe the involvement Elon had in Tesla.
The beat part of your video is that you try to make it so simple to understand for the least person, even if you have already done a video about what you talk about, like the the explainer time here where you explain rounds of investments again.
Thats the stupidest thing one can say. Out of all the companies Elon has been involved in (more than 10), none have gone bankrupt, most have gone to become multi billion dollar companies...
I like the question you pose at the end. It's primarily an informal title (like "leader"), so it makes sense that people would disagree on what it means. But everyone agrees on the essence of the title: someone who was involved with the company in a significant way early enough to be a major influence on the company. So how late can a person join a company before they no longer count as a founder? Is "late" measured by time, by the development of the company's vision, or by employee count? If you are influential enough on the company, does that make up for being a bit later? If all you contributed to the company was a name but not a vision, can you still count as a co-founder? What if you contributed a vision, but it was entirely scrapped later on? There will probably be some popular answers to these questions. Possibly even some formally recognized answers. But I think you can't ignore that there's still some subjective element to the title.
Yes, agreed on all you said. A lot of the founders, cofounders etc. comes down to semantics. Elon joined when a company was only a year old and based on everything that I read he was a big part of taking it to higher levels. A company can be a name and an idea but to make something actually come to fruition is a much larger process then just saying these two guys came up with a name and the idea.
Buddy, you are way overthinking this. Elon is a leech who lied and manipulated his way into his current position and bought off Trump (a politician) to get what he wants. This is not complicated to understand. He was not a cofounder of a business that was already operating without him
So how did he take over Tesla? This video never gave an answer to that question. It went from him being an over involved chairmen of the board causing problems to him being CEO. It’s more a timeline of what happened and not explanation of how or why it happened.
Musk joined Tesla a year after the company Tesla was founded. Musk invested millions as investor into Tesla with the condition that he receives the title as CEO of Tesla. Musk was the first major Investor of Tesla. But not the founder.
He may not be technically a co-founder, but let's be clear: Tesla would not exist today without Elon. Like him or not, he saved the company. The founders were not able to take the company to the next level. If I'm putting up a sizable amount of money in a company that hasn't gone to market yet, I believe that makes me one of the co-founders.
Maybe but Tesla also wouldnt be what it is without the 2008 bailout they received or all the government incentives. Both on the taxpayers dime. So with that logic maybe, we the taxpayers, are the founders.
Im interested that with all your analysis 2 points eluded you. First if all there were infact 4 people involved. The one you missed is JB Strauble. Thats a very big ommission and a man that is now well known as CEO of Redwood. So how come his name was not in your analysis. Strauble and Musk also approached AC Propulsion and this is how the four men became involved (4 not 3). Devond point ...As the company continued to struggle through the Financial Crisis cost audits revealed that Eberhard had not declared the full cost of the Roadster with cost being roughly double that which he informed the board. He had infact misrepresented the finances to the Tesla Board. Thats certainly a giring issue and thus it was at this point that Eberhard was fired for misrresenting finances. Unit losses were infact roughly 100% Thereafter yes other CEOs were apponinted and were unable to bridge the margin gap. It was in fact Musk who reengineered the Roadster to a marginal profit. It was also Musk that invested every final cent he had to manufacture thecwaiting list of cars promised. So there you ho. A vouple of corrections for your viewers to condider. Night night poppet!!
Excellent input. I wish to add a piece or two. Between the incorporation of Tesla in July 2003 by Eberhard (CEO) and Tarpenning (COO) and May 2004 five people instrumental in developing the prototype and laying the foundations for Tesla as a company were brought on board. Ian Wright in the Fall 2003 (VP of Vehicle Development) and who would work with Lotus in licensing their chassis as the glider for the Tesla electric motors and additional funding. In February 2004 Eberhard and Wright sought funding which led to Musk with his engineering interests in electric cars and his venture capital. They both agreed to Musk's request to be Chairman of the Board with a final say in all decisions. As reported here he began to do so by providing ideas into the Roadster's development (note: Remember Musk is an emerging rocket scientist/engineer at SpaceX partnering with Tom Muller). Perhaps it is insightful to note a comment by Wright who said Eberhard wanted to build the electric [roadster] he wanted to own and Musk wanted to build a car company like GM. Next came J. Straubel in May 2004 who would be the Chief Technology Officer putting the roadster prototype together. If you define “founder” informally as the person who incorporates a company then Eberhard and Tarpenning are Tesla Motors “co-founders.” If you define it legally as those instrumental to the foundation of a company and legally deserving equity interests then you have 5 founders, all essential, Eberhard, Tarpenning, Wright, Musk and Straubel. What few point out is that when Tesla began transitioning in 2008 from building a workable Roadster prototype into a production company only Musk and Straubel were left playing an active role in managing the company. One of the most difficult transitions entrepreneurial ventures deal with is evolving into successful, professional management. More often then not the founders of a company do not have the required capability to make this transition. Evidence of this was demonstrated in this video in Eberhard's struggle to manage development of the prototype. To his credit Eberhard recognized this shortcoming as the CEO and recommended being replaced. At this point Musk, much like Jobs, became the iCEO behind the scenes. It is therefore not surprising to me when Eberhard pressed his point legally about “the founders” that Wright, Straubel and Musk were included as “the 5.”
Elon doesn't miss represent the shareholders? Elon has made many claims to investors and customers alike that never came true. FSD is not Full nor Self Driving. Most software updates are "Fixes" that don't fix anything. Correct me if I am wrong.
@@dspano1093 so sorry, but You are wrong. Clearly you have not been driven around by (supervised) Full Self Driving and experienced “no pedal” driving. I am an excellent driver (over 50 years) and it is better than I am. It is a remarkable experience and well worth the subscription. Not sure what you are reading regarding misrepresenting the investors. I am an investor. As a CEO Musk has delivered on what he has promised and then some, even if he was overly-optimistic about the “when’s.” It’s the reason we retail investors strongly supported his long overdue pay package.
This completely ignores that Martin was removed for committing fraud, and that they didn’t begin development until after Musk was already on board. The prototype had been built by an entirely different company without their involvement. So they didn’t actually build anything until Musk got involved.
I have an idea for something, but I don't have the money, skills or ability to build it. Wanna come do everything for me? Just don't think of yourself as a co-founder, you're just a bag of money. Ok?
I highly recommend reading the Wikipedia article for the *AC Propulsion tzero* and specifically the section _Lithium-ion battery conversion_ for an accurate summation of how Musk got connected with Tarpenning and Eberhard.
once again, the engineer who actually designed the drive train and ac induction motor for the ev1 and hired by tesla is completely ignored... he created what made the tesla work. he is the true founder.
Funny how everyone misses that Martin and Mark had the money to fund tesla from a previous liquidation event for a company they had sold but CHOSE NOT TO - simply because they lacked the belief and will. Elon had the belief and willed Tesla into what it is today, no matter what anyone says. If that's not being a founder, I don't know what is.
@@archigoel doesnt matter, guy took that company from nothing to something with his money, put his car in space, developed a rocket at 1/10 the cost of nasa. if you're holding his success against him theres something wrong with you internally lol
Elon admitted he made a big mistake when he committed to Tesla. He thought since he developed a working prototype BEV and proved the concept, the hard part was done. As time went by, he had to put in more & more $ millions into production and still no profits. Eventually, he was on the verge of bankruptcy, and yet he ignored the advice of all his financial advisors and put his LAST MONEY into Tesla. He barely succeeded! It took working 20 hr. days for months, living, sleeping, on the factory floor. It cost him his marriage. He paid a high price personally and found out that "Production is 200 times harder than creating a prototype". Elon Musk set the "gold standard" for entrepreneurship.
@@archigoelWhat are you talking about? Elon started the company by putting his own money into it, which the other guys refused to do. Tesla only exists today thanks to Elon Musk.
in the future, you'll be screaming that you always loved and believed in Elon when theres a settlement on Mars and a Giant Asteroid is headed for Earth. I ask many people why they hate Elon, never any answers.... always media inspired NPCs. and they always are losers.
That's true; many of those attributes served the company well during and after its deepest struggles to become successful. The deep questions are: is it necessary to be an asshole to make those hard decisions made at Tesla; if that's true, is it because of the largely unregulated capitalistic economy in the US; and, if _that_ is true, is it generalizable to most technological successes within a system?
Musk joined the company Tesla a year after it was founded by the two founders. Musk invested a large sum of money under the condition that he is named CEO. Tesla existed as Tesla a year before Musk joined. That's why Musk can not be called a founder of the company. Musk did not even the company Tesla existed when Tesla was founded.
When I was pitching my startup to a VC they got annoyed when I didn't refer to myself as a co-founder, which I didn't do because I wasn't there when the first shares was issued. But I am now the second biggest shareholder. And one of the guys who where there then the company papers was signed is no longer with the company and owns 0 shares.
Idea without money is just a daydream. So I think if your biggest investor want to be called co-founder...why not? It's just a title, useless one at that. The most important is still money and support to keep company running.
This is more than that. this is not like an IT company where just with idea u can do a lot. THis is a auto company, these guys didn't even have a office, employee or prototype. THis was decided in the court.
@@archigoel It's just hurt Mark and Martin ego that's why it's a problem. It would be ok if both real founder want a bragging rights but they have to pay for it. When they refuse to put on their own money to get majority share. They lose that rights. They are employee (being CEO or whatever) who beef with the employer, Chairman of the board. CEO jobs is literally work under the board supervision. As I'm said, Co-founder is not legal title. If Elon ask to be call as the Gigachad of company, why the hell is that a problem? He's paid tens of millions for that. It's also why we have DEI in every company right now, because the biggest investors (blackrock) demands it. However, it's still a common sense that Mark and Martin blinded by their ego, couldn't figure it out
I would have really loved a more technical dive into this. Like who did they hire that had electric car knowledge? Elon? Did they develop any significant innovation that benefited Tesla right after Elon took over? What was the state of the company and Elon's contribution before taking over? Because, if Elon invested over 6 mill and provided the technical knowledge, then he may not have been a co-founder technically, but he deserves some credit and he should not be called a thief in this instance. Maybe he didn't want his time and money to go to waste in a dying company while looking for the right CEO? Let's be honest, If the company wasn't a success because of Elon, they wouldn't care today.
Which is why these type of video's are shit. This is common information -- Before Musk, Tesla was a paper company -- with o assets, o building, only a PPT. That's not a auto company, its a holding company. And Thief? Seriously? He was a CEO of Space X and last thing he wanted was to be Tesla CEO...but Martin was failing and he had to step in. Its shameful how they are twisting things.
@@sanjaygupta666 I was hoping they would expand on your first point a little more. I'm going to check for myself, but if that is the case, he really isn't a founder. I think there's nuance in your second, although it is more difficult for a someone who is not an engineer, it is not impossible to innovate.
The nexus of Tesla's founding was actually the AC Propulsion tZero made by Tom Gage. That prototype is what directly inspired Straubel, Musk, Eberhard and Tarpenning to pursue commercialisation of electric cars. I highly recommend people read the Wikipedia article for the *AC Propulsion tzero* and specifically the section *Lithium-ion battery conversion* for an accurate summation of how Musk became connected to Tesla.
It actually doesn't matter about the labels. The point is, Tesla wouldn't exist let alone become the most valuable car company on earth if it wasn't for Elon.
@@DonHavjuanhow so?? There are just TWO companies with positive margins on EVs and that's 20 after the startup of Tesla. One of those was financed by the CCP. The other by Elon Musk. The fact is that Tesla is the only company that has built self sustaining cash from EV operations and this whilst investing in Autonomy and now Robotics.
Same could be said of Bill Gates with Windows (DOS was someone else’s idea that Gates beat IBM to). And of Steve Jobs, the Apple operating system is modified Unix (though Jobs did make sure the Beos wasn’t used). Musk brought the energy, talent and money that was needed to drive Tesla forward as a successful company. Very unlikely under the “original founders”.
While Eberhard and Tarpenning were the original founders who kickstarted Tesla, it was Elon Musk's leadership, vision, and execution that transformed Tesla into the pioneering and massively successful electric vehicle company it is today. 45 The original founders did not create anything remotely as big or impactful as Tesla under Musk's guidance.
@@slowbot68 Without Musk, Tesla wouldve been the first 'Fisker'. Everything Musk touches works, because he's an Engineers Engineer... And while I am an EE with post grad work from MIT and Stanford.. Im guessing you are just a hater wishing people that you hate will fail.... Stop letting your emotions run your life..
Yes, but it didn't describe a car company, dummy. Someone coined the name "Saturn" too even though it's a planet. Someone coined the name Apollo for the vehicles that went to the moon, even though the God existed previously. Reading is fundamental.
Why the intrusive burble noise in the background. I gave up watching after four minutes because I was distracted by this noise which made listening uncomfortable.
imagine having an idea with a friend, running into two people with the same Idea, deciding to work together, spending millions from your own pocket, and then slowly over the next 20 years turning the company into a trillion-dollar giant (at its peak) and people are here asking if you were a co-founder.
@@imfreakingawesome8928 You mean the unfinished garbage vehicles on the road today? No quality inspections, which fail constantly? And the ever-promised self-driving that doesn't exist? Sure.
I appreciate how much work went into making this video. Well researched, well written, and well presented. I’ve read a lot about Musk’s history with Tesla and I learned things I didn’t know about.
I don't think Founder is really a legal term, so this all really doesn't mean much of anything. Just grown men acting like Toddlers. Although Musk wasn't there when the company was actually incorporated, he became involved a mere 7 months later. And I don't think all that much was done during that 7 months. I also don't think Eberhard or Tarpenning contributed all that much in terms of financing, expertise, leadership, technology development, etc. It seems their major contributions were: coming up with the name Tesla, deciding to start with a sports car targeted at affluent environment conscious buyers, deciding to us Lithium Ion batteries, and convincing Elon to invest heavily. Maybe there was more, but it didn't seem like much.
You could argue that the term founder apply to two kind of people. The people who actually founded the company (were part of the incorporation) and people who in its first 3 years of operation joined and made such a remarkable contribution in terms of vision that it changed the company structure and direction.
"actually founded" sounds like an "actual founder". If you have an idea, and need a founded company to make the idea a reality, you have founded nothing. You are instead an employee, or a consultant, or a stakeholder. Elon founded nothing in Tesla.
If you read Isaacson's Elon Musk biography, it does seem that Tesla period with Eberhardt/Tarpenning was not much different than any other EV startups that have since failed. It actually took many years later for Tesla under Musk's full leadership to finally emerge as what Tesla is today. There was a decent likelihood that a Tesla with just Eberhardt/Tarpenning would have been just another failed EV venture.
@@Jankes-eng Wait, is this what this video is about?? Semantics about a "co-founder" title?? It doesn't seem like it based on the title. ...Elon stole Tesla.
@devstuff2576 lmfao, I work in tech. Some tech company I was considering interviewing with, was offering "founder" title for a developer's role. It's a joke. Yeah it is about the semantics. Once Eberhardt/Tarpenning had run the EV startup into the ground without an Elon Musk just like the myriad of other failed EV startups, NO one would have cared who the hell the "founders" were. The ONLY reason why people want to bask in the Tesla glory and wealth is because of what Musk built. FYI I am definitely not a Musk fanboy but I will give credit where credit is due.
@@potodds_trading He's just a man baby with an ego that needs it's own planet, good thing he wants to go to mars, hope he gets stuck there. At the end of the day he was not the founder. The fact the he eventually had to settle so that he can be called a founder is just hilarious. It's the equivalent of buying your toddler a police costume and tell them "you're a police officer now"
Actually the major driver behind developing evs and the support it got was 911. Americans were united then and wanted to get away from saudi oil. That is why investors interest peaked in ev in the 2000s.
Neither was Elon at that point really. He was maybe known in the valley because of his PayPal exit and between space nerds as a waco who is building rocets, but not much beyond that. Also Tesla sold those first 100+ cars without Elons "star" assistance. The only real star at the unveiling was Scharzenneger who really brought Tesla to the attention of news outlets around the world. Its ony after this initial sucess that Elon had stepped in. And he really used both of his businesses to build him aura of real life Ironman/next comming of Steve Jobs. I mean these early emails from him make it clearly plain: His biggest gripe with Eberhart at the time were that he (Eberhart) stole the show. How inconsiderate of CEO! Trying to overshadow chairman himslef. In the end it proves only that Elon is same self centred moron now as he ever been.
True, Elon was not a founder. That title goes to the original two that came up with the idea of Tesla. However, those two was never able to take the idea anywhere significantly...they didn't really know how to organize and coalesce the technologies necessary to make the vision come true. Elon was brought in at a phase of assembling necessary know how and talents. Musk being a physicist and proficient engineer in computers and aerospace, was able to help bring the necessary funding and components together to get a compelling product that most resembled the original vision. I'd consider that a co-founder.
The truth is when Elon took over the company barely even had a functioning prototype,,... mass production which is incredibly hard ..... 99% of the work.... And without Elon the company would have certainly gone bankrupt there would be no Tesla in retrospect Elon regrets buying the company he could have could just started something from scratch it would have been less painful
There actually were 3 Blokes, but the 2 moaners hide that under the carpet. Also what triggered the downfall of Ekhard was an investigation by several of the investors that found the actual cost of the roadster was well over $100K while Ekhard who was CEO and in charge of manufacturing was claiming cost was close to half of real cost, and they were selling it at a far lower figure . Elon had the choice , let it go and lose his investment or take decisive action and invest the rest of the money he had and replace Ekhard as CEO. Note Ekhard was a multimillionaire from Property, yet never invested any of his own money in Tesla, in Fact they did not own the Name or the Tesla website and had to actually buy them from the then owners
HOwever, if there was no Elon there would be NO CHANCE of there being a Tesla. None, if you know the whole story of how it began and continued. Elon took massive risk to push Tesla onto the main stage.
your sources are literally a business insider article and a forbes article. Real hard-hitting journalism here. you don't have to hate the guy just because you were told to hate the guy.
No. I became a company co-founder 18 months after its inception; if it weren't for me, the company would have been worth nothing without my help. I reinvented the product and saved the company and its investors from bankruptcy by engineering 10 patents. I also owned a company and made someone a co-founder after I had developed a product for over a year. Nothing is wrong with giving pivotal people within an organization like Musk props and the title co-founder to cement them to the organization. If you don't see the value in this you are an idiot.
Given that all actual development and business function only happened after Elon joined, Elon can easily be considered a co-founder, which is exactly why the courts ruled in his favor....
Without Mr. Musk, Tesla (the car company) would be as much of a household word as AC Propulsion... even less, since we only remember them because of Tesla (the car company). Well... I knew of them since the beginning, but I've been seriously interested in electric cars (and other forms of sustainable energy systems and transport) since the late 80's.
Anyone who contributes to a significant amount of growth in the early stages of a company can be called as a co-founder. Whether it is an investor or a consultant or the actual founders themselves.
He’s not a founder, he is responsible for the hype and BS, which lets be honest turned its share price to the moon, and now those promises are falling flat, he’ll also be responsible for tanking the firm too, poetic really 😂
The way to warp your head around is simple: forget the names and details and imagine another imaginary company and imaginary founder. OK. It's a hypothetical, so you don't care about the outcome. You can be more objective like that. So the question is: If someone creates a company (this can be done quite easily, I've done it once for example) but it has not made or sold any products or services, is it a real company? Or is it just a proto-company? Imagine going to Shark Tank and telling them that you have a company but no products sold or even designed yet. No customers, no capital either. They would tell you that your company is worthless and is only a company on paper. That's Tesla when Elon Musk joined. After that came everything. So is he a founder? You tell me. Is Elon in the right? Yeah. He made Tesla go from a peanut size company to a star sized one. He MADE Space X from scratch, he made Neuralink from nothing, Boring Company did not exist, then he willed it into being, he founded OpenAI.
I think Elon is a "co-founder" in the broader sense. Sure he wasn't there when they named and incorporated the company so he wasn't a co-founder in the strictest sense but nothing really happened until he invested a big way at the very start and he also took control of the company as board chairman from the very start. I think he deserves to be called a co-founder with a small caveat.
The person who gets to be a founder is the one who has the most time and money to get a court to affirm the agreement of who the founder or in this case agree to a settlement, usually for money to not be called a founder... sad but true
Yeah but unlike a public company, it is hard to liquidate your shares during VC stages. It may be hugely possible he had no short term liquidity for his day to day cost of living
@@Sameer-d7w dudem Musk was living with friends, as he had put every last penny in Tesla & Space X, Eberhard could also have done it, but he plaid safe and smart, not mad like MUsk. He had lot of assets, that is not even a question.
He might not technically have started the company, but he joined while they were still in early pre-IPO development, and were it not for Musk’s involvement, Tesla would have been a footnote in car history. “Remember that time when some guys put laptop batteries in a Lotus frame? I wonder why that never seemed to get any further?” (Insert conspiracy theory about how the big car companies suppressed them, while everyone still drives gas cars.)
He did not found it but he DID save it. They were bankrupt and had no supply chain nor serious plans to scale up. Watch the movie THE FOUNDER it was the same with McDonalds.
If by save, you mean "ran it into the ground with his ego", sure. Everything Musk touches dies once his hype wears off. He's hollow otherwise. No skill, no talent except hype.
So, is Elon a founder or not? Drop your thoughts below! 🍿
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Well, isnt this exactly that movie The Founder with Michael Keaton. I guess if you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you'd have invented Facebook
Oh wait
"Not a co-founder" camp.
The popular "Ship of Theseus" debate of if someone helped provide important financial or strategic feedback early, influences decisions or drive ideas early in a companies life before a name becomes a name get credit for the companies success? By this logic should AC Propulsion be founders of Telsa?
In short no.
If AC Propulsion had taken Martin and Marc's advice, Martin and Marc would not and should not then become founders of AC Propulsion either. If they invest in AC Propulsion making the change from custom to mass produce EVs, they would have been important figures in its history but not co-founders. Re-incorporate AC Propulsion with a different name/legal agreement on who is founding the new company...then there is a solid debate. But that isn't what happened at Tesla. In building anything, there are a lot of small to large influences but they don't bring them all together. The leap from AC Propulsion custom EV cars to starting Telsa to mass produce EV cars is the same leap between Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning founding Tesla and Elon's entrance into Telsa. Influence yes, co-founders no.
I believe Elon earned the co-founder title fair and square. And this is an opinion I have formed by not only reading the book “Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson”, but also your video and various other sources. I also want to add the fact that Walter Isaacson didn’t just write the book from Elon’s perspective, he interviewed every single one of the cofounders, and even key employees to form his opinions for the book.
Elon was not only the biggest investor capital wise hence earning himself the position of chairman, he also put in a lot of sweat equity for example changing the car door latches to electric, which ended up becoming the symbol for Tesla getting them hundreds of thousands of more sales, he also designed the cars look with the help of his design engineer at SpaceX that was hired for Tesla named Franz von Holzhausen a French designer. He also worked on the dashboard of the car because it looked tacky. The seats were changed according to Elon’s design. The middle console with the huge table and the software it runs was also part Elon’s idea. In fact, the Lotis design was so bad that it couldn’t fit in the engine and the battery cells in a formation that made sense, that was all done by Elon and there’s much much more than that.
So in conclusion just because I made an LLC and came up with the idea doesn’t make me a cofounder it’s the amount of capital and sweat that I put into it to make it successful is what makes me the cofounder. The original founders were incompetent of making it happen, which is why they were as good as old news and Elon came out on the winning end. You also need to keep in mind Elon understands the technology in a very technical way aside from being the biggest investor. He was a coder and physics major first, who was also acting as the Chief Rocket Propulsion Engineer for SpaceX at the time, who became the biggest investor in Tesla and not the other way around like the vast majority of investors. So he really knew his stuff before joining Tesla. After that as we all know the rest is history.
No, he wasn't a founder. Court judges don't redefine English language words.
I believe Elon earned the co-founder title fair and square. And this is an opinion I have formed by not only reading the book “Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson”, but also your video and various other sources. I also want to add the fact that Walter Isaacson didn’t just write the book from Elon’s perspective, he interviewed every single one of the cofounders, and even key employees to form his opinions for the book.
Elon was not only the biggest investor capital wise hence earning himself the position of chairman, he also put in a lot of sweat equity for example changing the car door latches to electric, which ended up becoming the symbol for Tesla getting them hundreds of thousands of more sales, he also designed the cars look with the help of his design engineer at SpaceX that was hired for Tesla named Franz von Holzhausen a French designer. He also worked on the dashboard of the car because it looked tacky. The seats were changed according to Elon’s design. The middle console with the huge table and the software it runs was also part Elon’s idea. In fact, the Lotis design was so bad that it couldn’t fit in the engine and the battery cells in a formation that made sense, that was all done by Elon and there’s much much more than that.
So in conclusion just because I made an LLC and came up with the idea doesn’t make me a cofounder it’s the amount of capital and sweat that I put into it to make it successful is what makes me the cofounder. The original founders were incompetent of making it happen, which is why they were as good as old news and Elon came out on the winning end. You also need to keep in mind Elon understands the technology in a very technical way aside from being the biggest investor. He was a coder and physics major first, who was also acting as the chief propulsion engineer for SpaceX at the time, who became the biggest investor in Tesla and not the other way around like the vast majority of investors. So he really knew his stuff before joining Tesla. After that as we all know the rest is history.
He is a billionaire who cheats in video games for a no plausible reason.
Yeah this all makes sense to me. Did some sneaky stuff in Aus too
Let's not mince words, from what we know, he pays people to boost an account and then streams on said account pretending to be the gamer he's not, and its stupidly obvious.
imagine having won the game of life and still having an ego so fragile
Sooooo he is Edison?
In a many ways he is. He crafted his media narrative as a genius and a savior when what he did was a collective effort built on other people’s ideas. Where he differed from Musk is Edison didnt trash his own reputation with endless promises that never came to fruition and public behavior you expect from an angry teen with a personality disorder.
Yep
@glovere2 lol well Edison didn't have access to social media in the 1800s
@@fauxbro1983 True! I hadn’t thought of it that way. I can only imagine what Tesla would have posted in response. “Hey Tommy. Tell me again how DC is superior to AC.”
Yep. He always said he wanted to be him and not Tesla.
If Elon called himself a co-founder there could be an argument but he has fully rewritten history and refers to himself as THE founder.
Typical South Afrikaan
I find unless you have Elon there side by side all stated is nonsense fake news sorry .
He is a master of standing on the achievements of greater men. I knew he was an exaggeration of who he claims he is.
Even his parenting. He claims to be the best dad when hes just an absentee shadow that floats around and yells
What did the previous founder achieve, registering a company name?
@@leelaferroHe literally brings his sons with him to major events
@@Ash-re2fe yeah, takes his kids to events full of Epstein's friends. Great dad. 😂
@@mysticjaarseElon, you are using the wrong account
No, Elon was not the co-founder in any sense. He did, however have mega ambitions for the company. He was just too shrewd for Martin and Mark. He skill-fully out-manoeuvered them in a board-room coup. Martin and Mark are the true founders of this company.
no , they are not. those who actually led the company to build the factories and produce the first million cars are the founder. both martin and mark had registered the company and named it and that is. they did not have any ability to actually make it produce cars. In fact famously most electric car company failed until elon came along and made Tesla the only electric successful car company.
By shrewd you must mean a piece of sh*t 😅 Funny how people like you are devoid of moral implications of this type of behaviour but to dumb it down for you, think of it like this. What if you got screwed over by Elon the same way?
He was the co founder
My thought is that he stole the company. The true founders were naive, especially in allowing him to be chair. That enabled him to backtrack and delay a lot of processes and introduce some that would mess up manufacturing in my opinion.
In business, delay costs money. If you're having yo produce your own exotic parts that is a recipe for disaster over a company that is optimised for similar parts.
Costs for 140 people at even 500 /wk would be around 70k. With other overhears I'd say they were burning perhaps 100k / wk.
I think that forensic accounting and scrutiny might need to be applied to that story.
Bannon dropped a dime saying that he was evil. If as they say, it takes one to know one, I doubt that there are many that are more qualified to call it.😅
@@Ash-re2feNo he wasn’t
Doesn't seem like Elon Musk was ever a founder, much less a co-founder, in Tesla. Wow!
He's also not THE engineer that came up with ALL technological solutions at Tesla, despite claiming that he is. In fact: Elon Musk isn't even a certified engineer.
What Musk is, is a salesman who had an uncanny ability to sniff out companies that had the potential to make it big. And I use the past tense deliberately, because Musk seems to have lost his touch the moment he started sniffing his own farts and declared himself a genius.
Do you think Tesla had gone anywhere like this e-book.
@@bluerisk Do you think the e-book what lol
No
And?!
Mush is just like Edison, who took credit for other people's work(including Nikola Tesla's), and patents these ideas as his own. Con-Artist, and even his kids have said so.
Leon is the founder like he’s the world’s best Diablo ll player😂
paths of exile 2. but ur point still stands 😂
Well, since diablo immortal was pay to win...
13:01 Good to know Elon was a petulant child his entire life.
Good to know youre a crybaby wokie.
And is an insight what truly gets under his skin... lack of recognition, his ego.
@@joetuktyyuktuk8635 cry i drink your tears
@@joetuktyyuktuk8635Congrats. That’s literally every founder and executive at these tech companies. You figured out Elon! 😂😂😂
I feel sorry for those two. They seems to be cool dudes.
incompetent in the company would have gone bankrupt
Maybe, but they were incompetent and basically committed fraud with how they lied to the board. Tesla ended up being 100% better long term without them.
No they're idiots
@@13thbiosphere it shouldn't take a conartist to make a company work. The roadster was a lotus elise with electric motor conversion kit, Tesla was effectively a kit-car company. Tesla would likely still exist and maybe even made real innovation instead of being a fad- the Apple of electric cars.
@@Azerkeux the majority of people disagree with you're definitely in the minority ... obviously you're not a great researcher you don't know what you're talking about I don't agree with Elon about everything but mostly the guy works like a machine
I don't think Elon was co founder he didn't come up with the idea he wasn't the at the beginning he's crazy
And yet Martin agreed to call him a co-founder
@chazzatheninja no none off them said he was a Ian is not said he pitch to Elon he became the first investor plus how can he be a Co founder if the project had already started way before he joins and I hate one stop ✋️ system that's too much power 🔋 I don't hate or like him but I don't like it when ppl take credit off other ppl is work or try to change history
He didn’t design and build the starship rocket by hand by himself either. Fraud.
Sometimes it takes a leader who can motivate snd/or manipulate investors and employees. What I don’t get is that Elon’s communication skills are lackluster and yet people trip over themselves to ensure they don’t miss a word. When I try to sell an idea, I get this response “get away from me you creep” or “ stranger danger” 😖🤮😹
@@Detownrebel1 He's Edison. Not Tesla.
@@Detownrebel1 He's Elon Musk. Edison was a complete fraud compared to him
When I think of "founded a company" I think, "if you take this person away from it all together, does the company still exist?" If you take Elon away from Tesla, the company might have succeeded - they would have needed funding, but the idea existed. If you take those guys away from Tesla and just leave Elon, you have a bag of money and nothing to invest in.
Was he instrumental in their success? Sure. He may have had significant contributions (other than funding) after he became involved with the company. I just don't consider him a founder or co-founder (based on the content in this video).
Petulant poisonous bag of money…. Great description for Elon. When you take him on you get stuff you don’t want too.
That’s how I see it. It’s possible they could have gotten funding from the next billionaire on the list. Surely Musk wasn’t the only rich person with a passing interest in EVs.
Notably mentioned around 15:00 Mark in this video he talks about Elon bouncing between SpaceX and Tesla and scratching work. They might have had an easier time actually doing work with a full time Chairman who addresses things in real time.
Leon is the conman who takes a helicopter ride to the summit when no one is watching. He gets his photo op and claims to have done the hard work to climb the mountain. When you ask him to name one sherpa he climbed with, he's conveniently forgotten their names.
The question comes to me-does the investor with the most money investing get to be called co-founder. Now Musk is using his money (tax payer’s money) to aggressively and effectively become President of the United States.
I do think this is his goal to somehow be president. After all, it does seem much of the electorate is ok with ignoring parts of the constitution with regard to who is allowed to be president(14th and 25th amendments) when its 'their guy' running.
Not the US. Think bigger.
@@R355UR3C7the world. Such a pompous spoiled brat and LIAR.
F ELON.
How about a new term. A cofunder? Just drop the letter O.
😂😂😂💀
@@philipwangila244 cfunder?
No
@@Github_tech_with_ty no it's co-founder --> co-funder
Or add an “n” after the “o”
same thing happened with Mcdonalds. product or service inventors often aren't savvy businessmen & can't raise finance. they aren't managers & not cutthroat enough.
So he basically got away with stealing the company from the original creators because he has lots of money in power. Which is the same thing he's doing with the country right now 😡
Apple ceo is Tim Apple lol!! 10:37
Let him cook
it was a reference to what Donald Trump said when they met during his presidency
Credit Creditcardhelp is new to memes I see
@@CC-kg6vs Let Tim Cook
Tim cook is a crook..
musk is such a scammer. and the ego meltdown he had. he's just a bully and so unethical.
And that's why he and Trump get along so bloody well.
@2:37. There is a bid difference between 10% EVs on the road and 10% of Sales.
California did surpass 10% EV sales at one point.
It will take a while to replace the fleet on the road with any powertrain.
EVs were 23.9% of all car sales as of last quarter.
You know who didn't forget? Sam with OpenAI. Elon got played on that and became poopypants
There was a conflict of interest
That's why he left.
Sam is another unsavoury, two-faced character
@@phpn99 He met his match. The battle of snake oil salesmen
Yeah, Openai is the peak of success, theres nothing going on that would make one think it will implode soon under Sams leadership.... Hard to type Sarcasm
@@uromvictorlike the conflict of interest between xAI & Tesla. Hopefully he’ll not get his $56B & fuck off from Tesla for good
Bro. Your videos are top notch. Your thumbnails are holding you back
Money wins all the time. You need it to buy people out
😂😂😂😂 not anymore if people hold shares in your company you fucked.....
The company wouldn't have gotten started without Elon putting his own money into it. The other guys refused to invest their own money.
@@JamilaJibril-e8h founders have grace period on the shares they own. If you leave within the first two years then you’ll get nothing
Then why didn't Toyota or GM crush Tesla?
@@alchemist_one they need product outreach.,.. like the rest ... No one crush no one it's business... Once you run out of money you are done
@10:43 Tim "Apple" 😂
I’m seriously glad someone else caught this shit too.
These embedded ads sometimes remind me of the good ol days of cable tv, fast forwarding through the commercials 😁👍
If this and if that. Truth is - companies are only able to survive based on how passionately involved a person is - no matter the type of idea, project, or who founded it. Apple without Steve Jobs would’ve most likely died like Blackberry or Nokia. Kudos to the original founders of Tesla who started the company but Elon took it to another level, that cannot to denied either.
Unfortunately, with the gamification of financial markets/financial products, stocks, capital, and equity. It's more often the person most willing to commit fraud that succeeds... which the government has been far too lax about holding people accountable for over the last 4 decades.
he had the money. that was about it. look at how bad Tesla is right now lol
@@fishrockets ikr? It's not like it's worth a trillion dollars... wait...
@@fishrockets You drinking the koolaid bro.
@@DrDingus username checks out lol
So as usual he used his money and power to steal from the actual creators of the company. While continuing to profit more and more off of their hard work. Lame ass sorry excuse for a man.
A co-founder is an individual who has his name as a shareholder in an LLC on the day on which the company’s Articles of Association were submitted to the Registrar. Or a shareholder and a Board of Directors member anywhere before the breakeven point as agreed by the other founders.
if u want to be technical, then Court has ruled on it, and that's end of discussion. And if u want to be moral, than this is not even a question, Tesla was a paper incorporation before Musk.
@@archigoel going out of your way to further Musk's wish to be founder of a company he did not found?
As per your second definition Elon thus is a founder?
@@StinkPickle4000 you are going out of your way to to say Musk isnt a founder. According to silicon valley practise, he is, according to the court ruling, he is.
@@archigoel Nice try but nope. Musk persued legal remedies so he could claim to be founder and activated his cult to re-write history.
Doesn't mean he started the company.
If elon is not a co-founder, then we need to come up with a new title like "most essential persons at the start" or MEPATS😂
They're called venture capitalists &/or angel investors. Dime a dozen
@@sanjaygupta666 But angel investors and VCs have varying amounts of involvement, OPs point is that those term don’t accurately describe the involvement Elon had in Tesla.
@@Entertainment-Many angel investors do have this level of engagement with the company.
@@downix No sir
@Myko349 Yes sir. Hands on Angel Investors are reasonably common for startups.
The beat part of your video is that you try to make it so simple to understand for the least person, even if you have already done a video about what you talk about, like the the explainer time here where you explain rounds of investments again.
As a founder rule of thumb : Don't take Investment from Reliance , Elon , and Chinese .
Thats the stupidest thing one can say. Out of all the companies Elon has been involved in (more than 10), none have gone bankrupt, most have gone to become multi billion dollar companies...
@@jorgeavelar98seriously. Tesla would have been nothing without Elon.
Are you fucking kidding me? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever read on the internet
@@scottm4975 But people love to hate when people make it😂 let them have that
LOOL, only Musk was mad enough to put his money, no one else would give them money. They didn't put their own assets into Tesla, like Musk did.
I like how after you said "money wins", you went for a haircut😊😂
I like the question you pose at the end. It's primarily an informal title (like "leader"), so it makes sense that people would disagree on what it means. But everyone agrees on the essence of the title: someone who was involved with the company in a significant way early enough to be a major influence on the company. So how late can a person join a company before they no longer count as a founder? Is "late" measured by time, by the development of the company's vision, or by employee count? If you are influential enough on the company, does that make up for being a bit later? If all you contributed to the company was a name but not a vision, can you still count as a co-founder? What if you contributed a vision, but it was entirely scrapped later on?
There will probably be some popular answers to these questions. Possibly even some formally recognized answers. But I think you can't ignore that there's still some subjective element to the title.
Yes, agreed on all you said. A lot of the founders, cofounders etc. comes down to semantics. Elon joined when a company was only a year old and based on everything that I read he was a big part of taking it to higher levels. A company can be a name and an idea but to make something actually come to fruition is a much larger process then just saying these two guys came up with a name and the idea.
Buddy, you are way overthinking this. Elon is a leech who lied and manipulated his way into his current position and bought off Trump (a politician) to get what he wants. This is not complicated to understand. He was not a cofounder of a business that was already operating without him
So how did he take over Tesla? This video never gave an answer to that question. It went from him being an over involved chairmen of the board causing problems to him being CEO. It’s more a timeline of what happened and not explanation of how or why it happened.
10:17 Rewatch starting here
Musk joined Tesla a year after the company Tesla was founded. Musk invested millions as investor into Tesla with the condition that he receives the title as CEO of Tesla. Musk was the first major Investor of Tesla. But not the founder.
He may not be technically a co-founder, but let's be clear: Tesla would not exist today without Elon. Like him or not, he saved the company. The founders were not able to take the company to the next level. If I'm putting up a sizable amount of money in a company that hasn't gone to market yet, I believe that makes me one of the co-founders.
The word you’re looking for is investor.
Guy above me can't read
And you would still be wrong
Maybe but Tesla also wouldnt be what it is without the 2008 bailout they received or all the government incentives. Both on the taxpayers dime. So with that logic maybe, we the taxpayers, are the founders.
@@steve7814don’t be delusional to think you “tax payers” did any work to save the company 😂
Im interested that with all your analysis 2 points eluded you. First if all there were infact 4 people involved. The one you missed is JB Strauble. Thats a very big ommission and a man that is now well known as CEO of Redwood. So how come his name was not in your analysis. Strauble and Musk also approached AC Propulsion and this is how the four men became involved (4 not 3). Devond point ...As the company continued to struggle through the Financial Crisis cost audits revealed that Eberhard had not declared the full cost of the Roadster with cost being roughly double that which he informed the board. He had infact misrepresented the finances to the Tesla Board. Thats certainly a giring issue and thus it was at this point that Eberhard was fired for misrresenting finances. Unit losses were infact roughly 100% Thereafter yes other CEOs were apponinted and were unable to bridge the margin gap. It was in fact Musk who reengineered the Roadster to a marginal profit. It was also Musk that invested every final cent he had to manufacture thecwaiting list of cars promised. So there you ho. A vouple of corrections for your viewers to condider. Night night poppet!!
Good points. Technically before JB and Elon Tesla was a company just on paper.
Excellent input. I wish to add a piece or two. Between the incorporation of Tesla in July 2003 by Eberhard (CEO) and Tarpenning (COO) and May 2004 five people instrumental in developing the prototype and laying the foundations for Tesla as a company were brought on board. Ian Wright in the Fall 2003 (VP of Vehicle Development) and who would work with Lotus in licensing their chassis as the glider for the Tesla electric motors and additional funding. In February 2004 Eberhard and Wright sought funding which led to Musk with his engineering interests in electric cars and his venture capital. They both agreed to Musk's request to be Chairman of the Board with a final say in all decisions. As reported here he began to do so by providing ideas into the Roadster's development (note: Remember Musk is an emerging rocket scientist/engineer at SpaceX partnering with Tom Muller). Perhaps it is insightful to note a comment by Wright who said Eberhard wanted to build the electric [roadster] he wanted to own and Musk wanted to build a car company like GM. Next came J. Straubel in May 2004 who would be the Chief Technology Officer putting the roadster prototype together. If you define “founder” informally as the person who incorporates a company then Eberhard and Tarpenning are Tesla Motors “co-founders.” If you define it legally as those instrumental to the foundation of a company and legally deserving equity interests then you have 5 founders, all essential, Eberhard, Tarpenning, Wright, Musk and Straubel. What few point out is that when Tesla began transitioning in 2008 from building a workable Roadster prototype into a production company only Musk and Straubel were left playing an active role in managing the company. One of the most difficult transitions entrepreneurial ventures deal with is evolving into successful, professional management. More often then not the founders of a company do not have the required capability to make this transition. Evidence of this was demonstrated in this video in Eberhard's struggle to manage development of the prototype. To his credit Eberhard recognized this shortcoming as the CEO and recommended being replaced. At this point Musk, much like Jobs, became the iCEO behind the scenes. It is therefore not surprising to me when Eberhard pressed his point legally about “the founders” that Wright, Straubel and Musk were included as “the 5.”
Elon doesn't miss represent the shareholders? Elon has made many claims to investors and customers alike that never came true. FSD is not Full nor Self Driving. Most software updates are "Fixes" that don't fix anything. Correct me if I am wrong.
@@dspano1093 FSD probably already drives better than most humans, at least with Version 12 now
@@dspano1093 so sorry, but You are wrong. Clearly you have not been driven around by (supervised) Full Self Driving and experienced “no pedal” driving. I am an excellent driver (over 50 years) and it is better than I am. It is a remarkable experience and well worth the subscription. Not sure what you are reading regarding misrepresenting the investors. I am an investor. As a CEO Musk has delivered on what he has promised and then some, even if he was overly-optimistic about the “when’s.” It’s the reason we retail investors strongly supported his long overdue pay package.
10:44 you called Tim Cook "Tim Apple" 🤣
This completely ignores that Martin was removed for committing fraud, and that they didn’t begin development until after Musk was already on board. The prototype had been built by an entirely different company without their involvement. So they didn’t actually build anything until Musk got involved.
I have an idea for something, but I don't have the money, skills or ability to build it. Wanna come do everything for me? Just don't think of yourself as a co-founder, you're just a bag of money. Ok?
Probably ignored that because there is no evidence of Martin's fraud, just poor performance. Elon on the other hand...
I highly recommend reading the Wikipedia article for the *AC Propulsion tzero* and specifically the section _Lithium-ion battery conversion_ for an accurate summation of how Musk got connected with Tarpenning and Eberhard.
Elmo is a moron!
Muskrats are insane.
once again, the engineer who actually designed the drive train and ac induction motor for the ev1 and hired by tesla is completely ignored... he created what made the tesla work. he is the true founder.
Funny how everyone misses that Martin and Mark had the money to fund tesla from a previous liquidation event for a company they had sold but CHOSE NOT TO - simply because they lacked the belief and will. Elon had the belief and willed Tesla into what it is today, no matter what anyone says. If that's not being a founder, I don't know what is.
Yup, just putting your name in the founding company paper dosen't make u a founder.
@@archigoel doesnt matter, guy took that company from nothing to something with his money, put his car in space, developed a rocket at 1/10 the cost of nasa. if you're holding his success against him theres something wrong with you internally lol
Elon admitted he made a big mistake when he committed to Tesla. He thought since he developed a working prototype BEV and proved the concept, the hard part was done. As time went by, he had to put in more & more $ millions into production and still no profits. Eventually, he was on the verge of bankruptcy, and yet he ignored the advice of all his financial advisors and put his LAST MONEY into Tesla. He barely succeeded! It took working 20 hr. days for months, living, sleeping, on the factory floor. It cost him his marriage. He paid a high price personally and found out that "Production is 200 times harder than creating a prototype". Elon Musk set the "gold standard" for entrepreneurship.
@@archigoelWhat are you talking about? Elon started the company by putting his own money into it, which the other guys refused to do. Tesla only exists today thanks to Elon Musk.
Correct 💯
I'm not sure about this whole "founder" thing, but I'm sure as hell he tick all the boxes for an asshole.
in the future, you'll be screaming that you always loved and believed in Elon when theres a settlement on Mars and a Giant Asteroid is headed for Earth. I ask many people why they hate Elon, never any answers.... always media inspired NPCs. and they always are losers.
That's true; many of those attributes served the company well during and after its deepest struggles to become successful.
The deep questions are: is it necessary to be an asshole to make those hard decisions made at Tesla; if that's true, is it because of the largely unregulated capitalistic economy in the US; and, if _that_ is true, is it generalizable to most technological successes within a system?
Musk joined the company Tesla a year after it was founded by the two founders. Musk invested a large sum of money under the condition that he is named CEO. Tesla existed as Tesla a year before Musk joined. That's why Musk can not be called a founder of the company. Musk did not even the company Tesla existed when Tesla was founded.
When I was pitching my startup to a VC they got annoyed when I didn't refer to myself as a co-founder, which I didn't do because I wasn't there when the first shares was issued. But I am now the second biggest shareholder. And one of the guys who where there then the company papers was signed is no longer with the company and owns 0 shares.
So?
Idea without money is just a daydream. So I think if your biggest investor want to be called co-founder...why not? It's just a title, useless one at that. The most important is still money and support to keep company running.
The “original” founders didn’t want to use their own liquidity on Tesla, Elon did and became the operational figure that led the company into success.
This is more than that. this is not like an IT company where just with idea u can do a lot. THis is a auto company, these guys didn't even have a office, employee or prototype. THis was decided in the court.
@@archigoel It's just hurt Mark and Martin ego that's why it's a problem. It would be ok if both real founder want a bragging rights but they have to pay for it. When they refuse to put on their own money to get majority share. They lose that rights. They are employee (being CEO or whatever) who beef with the employer, Chairman of the board. CEO jobs is literally work under the board supervision. As I'm said, Co-founder is not legal title. If Elon ask to be call as the Gigachad of company, why the hell is that a problem? He's paid tens of millions for that. It's also why we have DEI in every company right now, because the biggest investors (blackrock) demands it. However, it's still a common sense that Mark and Martin blinded by their ego, couldn't figure it out
Those who win battles write history
Observation, the white text font on the grey background, was not very legible.
Thanks. Great little in-depth video about reality and funding.
I would have really loved a more technical dive into this. Like who did they hire that had electric car knowledge? Elon? Did they develop any significant innovation that benefited Tesla right after Elon took over? What was the state of the company and Elon's contribution before taking over? Because, if Elon invested over 6 mill and provided the technical knowledge, then he may not have been a co-founder technically, but he deserves some credit and he should not be called a thief in this instance. Maybe he didn't want his time and money to go to waste in a dying company while looking for the right CEO? Let's be honest, If the company wasn't a success because of Elon, they wouldn't care today.
Which is why these type of video's are shit. This is common information -- Before Musk, Tesla was a paper company -- with o assets, o building, only a PPT. That's not a auto company, its a holding company.
And Thief? Seriously? He was a CEO of Space X and last thing he wanted was to be Tesla CEO...but Martin was failing and he had to step in. Its shameful how they are twisting things.
The company was just a name on a piece of paper before Elon joined. There were no employees or products or technology. Basically nothing.
You can find all this out by googling it.. 😂
Musk provided no technical input, only cosmetic. It’s also an objective fact that he isn’t an engineer
@@sanjaygupta666 I was hoping they would expand on your first point a little more. I'm going to check for myself, but if that is the case, he really isn't a founder. I think there's nuance in your second, although it is more difficult for a someone who is not an engineer, it is not impossible to innovate.
this story is missing a lot of detail. Mark Eberhard was lying about how much the Roadster was going to cost
The nexus of Tesla's founding was actually the AC Propulsion tZero made by Tom Gage. That prototype is what directly inspired Straubel, Musk, Eberhard and Tarpenning to pursue commercialisation of electric cars. I highly recommend people read the Wikipedia article for the *AC Propulsion tzero* and specifically the section *Lithium-ion battery conversion* for an accurate summation of how Musk became connected to Tesla.
I don’t think it was on purpose
Elon always tells the truth regarding launch pricing? 😂😂
Who does your video editing?
Deez nuts
Elon was a funder, not a founder.
He couldn't fund Tesla if he didn't find it though.
@@jovanleon7 Do you men he's also a finder? ok, sure.
It actually doesn't matter about the labels. The point is, Tesla wouldn't exist let alone become the most valuable car company on earth if it wasn't for Elon.
youtube thumbnails looove that elon raising his eyebrow picture for some reason
So he's always had a major ego issue. I see why Elon and Trump want to get married 😂. They both have the emotional intelligence of a 2-year-old.
I think there should be some consideration here. Without Elon, it’s almost certain that Tesla, and EVs as an industry, wouldn’t exist.
The opposite is true. It would be much further advanced.
@@DonHavjuan Big oil and gas has to much power. Ev's needed a stud like Elon to bring it main stream
@@DonHavjuanhow so?? There are just TWO companies with positive margins on EVs and that's 20 after the startup of Tesla. One of those was financed by the CCP. The other by Elon Musk. The fact is that Tesla is the only company that has built self sustaining cash from EV operations and this whilst investing in Autonomy and now Robotics.
You're delusional mate
@@DonHavjuanso why haven't these two created the much further advanced company without Elon😂😂😂.
Same could be said of Bill Gates with Windows (DOS was someone else’s idea that Gates beat IBM to). And of Steve Jobs, the Apple operating system is modified Unix (though Jobs did make sure the Beos wasn’t used). Musk brought the energy, talent and money that was needed to drive Tesla forward as a successful company. Very unlikely under the “original founders”.
Bill gates knew stuff to do with softwares
Also, Steve Wozniak built the first two apple computers
Everything that goes up... Falls down eventually.
While Eberhard and Tarpenning were the original founders who kickstarted Tesla, it was Elon Musk's leadership, vision, and execution that transformed Tesla into the pioneering and massively successful electric vehicle company it is today. 45 The original founders did not create anything remotely as big or impactful as Tesla under Musk's guidance.
Someone finally said the truth. But because people don't like Elon these days no one will acknowledge this.
as if. they had the vision, they made it happen. musk took it over using his money and then angled in for the credit too.
@@slowbot68 Without Musk, Tesla wouldve been the first 'Fisker'. Everything Musk touches works, because he's an Engineers Engineer... And while I am an EE with post grad work from MIT and Stanford.. Im guessing you are just a hater wishing people that you hate will fail.... Stop letting your emotions run your life..
0:50 "mark coins the name tesla"? I guess he coined the name Tesla similar to how the band Hanson got their name. Have you not heard of Nikola Tesla?
Yes, but it didn't describe a car company, dummy. Someone coined the name "Saturn" too even though it's a planet. Someone coined the name Apollo for the vehicles that went to the moon, even though the God existed previously.
Reading is fundamental.
that Donald Trump reference "Tim Apple" :D
Why the intrusive burble noise in the background. I gave up watching after four minutes because I was distracted by this noise which made listening uncomfortable.
I thought it was just my phone, wow, yes, irritating af 🤬🤬🤬
imagine having an idea with a friend, running into two people with the same Idea, deciding to work together, spending millions from your own pocket, and then slowly over the next 20 years turning the company into a trillion-dollar giant (at its peak) and people are here asking if you were a co-founder.
If elon stole Tesla, he stole a prototype of an electric car that be bought, and didn't end up bringing to production.
You could breathe better if you took Elon out of your mouth first.
@@imfreakingawesome8928 You mean the unfinished garbage vehicles on the road today? No quality inspections, which fail constantly? And the ever-promised self-driving that doesn't exist? Sure.
I appreciate how much work went into making this video. Well researched, well written, and well presented. I’ve read a lot about Musk’s history with Tesla and I learned things I didn’t know about.
We appreciate you taking the time to drop a comment :)
I don't think Founder is really a legal term, so this all really doesn't mean much of anything. Just grown men acting like Toddlers.
Although Musk wasn't there when the company was actually incorporated, he became involved a mere 7 months later. And I don't think all that much was done during that 7 months. I also don't think Eberhard or Tarpenning contributed all that much in terms of financing, expertise, leadership, technology development, etc. It seems their major contributions were: coming up with the name Tesla, deciding to start with a sports car targeted at affluent environment conscious buyers, deciding to us Lithium Ion batteries, and convincing Elon to invest heavily. Maybe there was more, but it didn't seem like much.
When a company is founded there is a space on the company charter for whom the founders are. It is very much a legal term.
You are absolutely great at what you do!
Appreciate it 😊
I thought everything already came to light widely after the Twitter buyout
Ya know what? Steve Wozniak deserves more credit for the iPhone. 😆
You could argue that the term founder apply to two kind of people.
The people who actually founded the company (were part of the incorporation) and people who in its first 3 years of operation joined and made such a remarkable contribution in terms of vision that it changed the company structure and direction.
"actually founded" sounds like an "actual founder".
If you have an idea, and need a founded company to make the idea a reality, you have founded nothing. You are instead an employee, or a consultant, or a stakeholder. Elon founded nothing in Tesla.
Cool facts and details. Thanks for sharing. 😎
If you read Isaacson's Elon Musk biography, it does seem that Tesla period with Eberhardt/Tarpenning was not much different than any other EV startups that have since failed. It actually took many years later for Tesla under Musk's full leadership to finally emerge as what Tesla is today. There was a decent likelihood that a Tesla with just Eberhardt/Tarpenning would have been just another failed EV venture.
No doubt about it. Still question is, if you take over a company from somebody else, can you call yourself co-founder.
@@Jankes-eng Wait, is this what this video is about?? Semantics about a "co-founder" title?? It doesn't seem like it based on the title. ...Elon stole Tesla.
@devstuff2576 lmfao, I work in tech. Some tech company I was considering interviewing with, was offering "founder" title for a developer's role. It's a joke. Yeah it is about the semantics. Once Eberhardt/Tarpenning had run the EV startup into the ground without an Elon Musk just like the myriad of other failed EV startups, NO one would have cared who the hell the "founders" were. The ONLY reason why people want to bask in the Tesla glory and wealth is because of what Musk built. FYI I am definitely not a Musk fanboy but I will give credit where credit is due.
Still doesn't make him a founder, just the money bags!
@@potodds_trading He's just a man baby with an ego that needs it's own planet, good thing he wants to go to mars, hope he gets stuck there. At the end of the day he was not the founder. The fact the he eventually had to settle so that he can be called a founder is just hilarious. It's the equivalent of buying your toddler a police costume and tell them "you're a police officer now"
Actually the major driver behind developing evs and the support it got was 911. Americans were united then and wanted to get away from saudi oil. That is why investors interest peaked in ev in the 2000s.
NOW, it all makes sense.
Tesla would have been another one of the many failed EV companies without Elon. Eberhad and Tarpening would not be known to the wider public.
Neither was Elon at that point really. He was maybe known in the valley because of his PayPal exit and between space nerds as a waco who is building rocets, but not much beyond that. Also Tesla sold those first 100+ cars without Elons "star" assistance. The only real star at the unveiling was Scharzenneger who really brought Tesla to the attention of news outlets around the world. Its ony after this initial sucess that Elon had stepped in. And he really used both of his businesses to build him aura of real life Ironman/next comming of Steve Jobs. I mean these early emails from him make it clearly plain: His biggest gripe with Eberhart at the time were that he (Eberhart) stole the show. How inconsiderate of CEO! Trying to overshadow chairman himslef. In the end it proves only that Elon is same self centred moron now as he ever been.
True, Elon was not a founder. That title goes to the original two that came up with the idea of Tesla. However, those two was never able to take the idea anywhere significantly...they didn't really know how to organize and coalesce the technologies necessary to make the vision come true. Elon was brought in at a phase of assembling necessary know how and talents. Musk being a physicist and proficient engineer in computers and aerospace, was able to help bring the necessary funding and components together to get a compelling product that most resembled the original vision. I'd consider that a co-founder.
The truth is when Elon took over the company barely even had a functioning prototype,,... mass production which is incredibly hard ..... 99% of the work.... And without Elon the company would have certainly gone bankrupt there would be no Tesla in retrospect Elon regrets buying the company he could have could just started something from scratch it would have been less painful
He's a founder, before he joined Tesla, the 2 blokes just had an idea with no resources. No Elon = No Tesla. Sounds like a founder to me.
There actually were 3 Blokes, but the 2 moaners hide that under the carpet.
Also what triggered the downfall of Ekhard was an investigation by several of the investors that found the actual cost of the roadster was well over $100K while Ekhard who was CEO and in charge of manufacturing was claiming cost was close to half of real cost, and they were selling it at a far lower figure . Elon had the choice , let it go and lose his investment or take decisive action and invest the rest of the money he had and replace Ekhard as CEO.
Note Ekhard was a multimillionaire from Property, yet never invested any of his own money in Tesla, in Fact they did not own the Name or the Tesla website and had to actually buy them from the then owners
they founded the company , elon didnt
@@abhinavkumar4824if you call registering a name then yes. That's all they did without Elon
By that logic, Mike Markkula is the founder of Apple.
If not elon someone will invest he's not the only investor in the world
that HDR is crazy
HOwever, if there was no Elon there would be NO CHANCE of there being a Tesla. None, if you know the whole story of how it began and continued. Elon took massive risk to push Tesla onto the main stage.
your sources are literally a business insider article and a forbes article. Real hard-hitting journalism here. you don't have to hate the guy just because you were told to hate the guy.
Thank you Caya, In this case, Co-Founders should be Martin and Mark.
No. I became a company co-founder 18 months after its inception; if it weren't for me, the company would have been worth nothing without my help. I reinvented the product and saved the company and its investors from bankruptcy by engineering 10 patents.
I also owned a company and made someone a co-founder after I had developed a product for over a year. Nothing is wrong with giving pivotal people within an organization like Musk props and the title co-founder to cement them to the organization.
If you don't see the value in this you are an idiot.
Given that all actual development and business function only happened after Elon joined, Elon can easily be considered a co-founder, which is exactly why the courts ruled in his favor....
Great job. I wish someone would make a biopic on the founding of Tesla.
He’s not a co-founder. He wormed his way into owning the company.
You mean he invested his own money, which the other guys refused to do...
@@HM-hu4hu
Own money
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
That is a matter of fact. 😮
The art of the con
Without Elon Tesla would be a tiny company doing bugger all. Elon made Tesla.
Probably would have been dead
Without Mr. Musk, Tesla (the car company) would be as much of a household word as AC Propulsion... even less, since we only remember them because of Tesla (the car company). Well... I knew of them since the beginning, but I've been seriously interested in electric cars (and other forms of sustainable energy systems and transport) since the late 80's.
The American taxpayers made Tesla, Tesla.
@@devinmillermediaIf taxpayer money is all it took to make successful companies you'd have hundreds of Teslas.
He didn’t found Tesla. He invested in it.
Anyone who contributes to a significant amount of growth in the early stages of a company can be called as a co-founder. Whether it is an investor or a consultant or the actual founders themselves.
Money always wins. Founders are not important. Companies go to live on without their founders.
He’s not a founder, he is responsible for the hype and BS, which lets be honest turned its share price to the moon, and now those promises are falling flat, he’ll also be responsible for tanking the firm too, poetic really 😂
Tesla is up 15,000% or more since it went public. What are you talking about?
Let's be honest! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Anyone notice how this seems to always happen with huge companies? McDonalds, stolen. Facebook, stolen. Tesla, stolen.
The way to warp your head around is simple: forget the names and details and imagine another imaginary company and imaginary founder. OK. It's a hypothetical, so you don't care about the outcome. You can be more objective like that. So the question is: If someone creates a company (this can be done quite easily, I've done it once for example) but it has not made or sold any products or services, is it a real company? Or is it just a proto-company? Imagine going to Shark Tank and telling them that you have a company but no products sold or even designed yet. No customers, no capital either. They would tell you that your company is worthless and is only a company on paper.
That's Tesla when Elon Musk joined. After that came everything.
So is he a founder? You tell me. Is Elon in the right? Yeah. He made Tesla go from a peanut size company to a star sized one. He MADE Space X from scratch, he made Neuralink from nothing, Boring Company did not exist, then he willed it into being, he founded OpenAI.
He is an early investor. That's all.
I believe that is all the people that contributed to the first product to be released
I think Elon is a "co-founder" in the broader sense. Sure he wasn't there when they named and incorporated the company so he wasn't a co-founder in the strictest sense but nothing really happened until he invested a big way at the very start and he also took control of the company as board chairman from the very start. I think he deserves to be called a co-founder with a small caveat.
The person who gets to be a founder is the one who has the most time and money to get a court to affirm the agreement of who the founder or in this case agree to a settlement, usually for money to not be called a founder... sad but true
Eberhard claiming he had no money is laughable. He had millions beforehand and certainly had at least a million left over plus 25% of Tesla
Yeah but unlike a public company, it is hard to liquidate your shares during VC stages. It may be hugely possible he had no short term liquidity for his day to day cost of living
@@Sameer-d7w He also did not accomplish shit, he did not make money for anyone, not investors or himself, where would he expect money to come from?😂
@@Sameer-d7w dudem Musk was living with friends, as he had put every last penny in Tesla & Space X, Eberhard could also have done it, but he plaid safe and smart, not mad like MUsk. He had lot of assets, that is not even a question.
I think you should read the biography, it's illustrated pretty well there
Of course he never founded the company, but it wouldnt be anywhere near where it is today without Elon, he was the one who added value to the company.
It would probably be much further without Elon let be honest. He’s the one holding back all the engineer work of the company
@@meorung05the company was almost bust at the time Elon got involved.
Clearly Musk took it over but he wasn’t a founder. His ego won’t let him accept that because he has been such a force, but thats how it goes…
They should start another company if they are that good.
Didn't they try... and fail?
I am the Founder kidding btw great research & video
He might not technically have started the company, but he joined while they were still in early pre-IPO development, and were it not for Musk’s involvement, Tesla would have been a footnote in car history. “Remember that time when some guys put laptop batteries in a Lotus frame? I wonder why that never seemed to get any further?” (Insert conspiracy theory about how the big car companies suppressed them, while everyone still drives gas cars.)
He did not found it but he DID save it. They were bankrupt and had no supply chain nor serious plans to scale up. Watch the movie THE FOUNDER it was the same with McDonalds.
If by save, you mean "ran it into the ground with his ego", sure. Everything Musk touches dies once his hype wears off. He's hollow otherwise. No skill, no talent except hype.
@@NeighborhoodOfBluelmao turning a dead $15 million startup in 2004 to a $1.4 trillion juggernaut. “Talentless and hollow”