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There’s a nasty, drag-out fight going on between current Tesla Chairman and CEO Elon Musk and his predecessor, Martin Eberhard, over who deserves credit for birthing the electric roadster. Musk has posted a lengthy defense of his position at the Tesla Motors blog, and according to him, Eberhard is the bad guy. Lots of e-mails attached. Ugly stuff.
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I prefer to stay tuned to the Piëch VS Wiedeking soup opera…
Too bad for all of them the electric car has existed for over 100 years and the Tesla roadster is the same thing with better batteries…
oh, and they didn’t invent the batteries either.
Who deserves credit for building the Tesla? That’s easy. Lotus.
Typical Ego-Fueled Drama.
It doesn’t matter, at all, who gets the “credit.” To even bring up the issue just proves that both of these clowns are complete douchebags. True greatness is achieved by those who don’t care about the credit, and instead focus on the product itself. Tesla is far too young to be arguing over issues of vanity. Credit should only be acknowledged after years and years of success, and then only at one’s retirement ceremony… and then it should be demurred and pointed to the people who actually did the work.
Leadership is not about credit. There is nothing worse for a hard-working, talented team than working your ass off to make something amazing, only to have the “boss” bask in your glory. These two blow-hards should just shut up and let the car, and the balance sheet do all the talking.
–chuck
What does wikipedia say?
Who gets the credit when the thing goes belly-up?
Chuck,
That is exactly the point. When your product blows and your balance sheet is negative all that is left to do is to claim reinvention of the wheel.
First, posting a bunch of emails on a blog is the kind of move a 10th grade girl would pull to get back at someone.
Second, I do believe that Musk is a much better CEO than Eberhard. Once Musk was put in charge a lot of the problems the Roadster faced (which Eberhard made constant excuses about) were quickly solved. That said, I’m not a fan of Musk pulling a Ray Kroc and acting like Tesla would exist without Eberhard. Both of these guys could have handled the situation better and neither is willing to accept any of the blame.
Both Musk and Eberhard are grade-A egomaniac jackasses that act like making some toys for the super-rich is going to revolutionize the auto industry and save the world. I hope the judge in this court case somehow manages to find both of them guilty.
Personally, they will never get a dime from me.
A very interesting article about fantasy cars
Only in America could flakes like these become billionaires. Luckily Tesla and the lawyers should take care of that.
Welcome to the dirty little mess that is the real Silicon Valley. Hollywood has nothing to brag about compared to my neighbors.
BTW, has anyone noticed that Silicon Valley is becoming a bit player on the world stage, sort of like an aging rock star still touring, but doing lesser and lesser venues? Silicon Valley’s unemployment rate now exceeds the national average. Heck, Silicon Valley hardly makes any chips anymore.
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=usunemployment&met=unemployment_rate&idim=county:CN060850&q=santa+clara+county+unemployment+rate
Silicon Valley is becoming a bit player? Have you heard of Google, Apple iPhone, Twitter or Facebook?
Elon Musk is a lot of things but “flake” is definitely one of them.javascript:document.getElementById(‘commentform’).submit();
Anybody who thinks he should start a car company these days should have his head examined. Development cost of a car is estimated to be in the billions. Establishing a brand takes 10 years and more. If Tier 2 companies don’t have the economies of scale to successfully develop and market a car, if Tier 1 companies go bankrupt or bleed all over their balance sheets, why is it that there are always people who think they are smarter than the market? The world has way too many car companies. The world doesn’t need more.
neither Musk nor Eberhard have ever had billions. a few hundred mil yes, not $bils tho.
Musk is an control freak egomaniac. Eberhard to have over interested in the technical engineering challenges & not very focused on the financial aspects of product development – a typical engineer in other words :-)
even with the $350M they want to get from the DoE it’s going to be a big challenge for them to get the Model S off the ground on the timeframe they’ve committed to. I’m not sure how a $50k car is “accessable” to the mass market either, but they can knock themselves out developing it I guess. I’m no fan of Tesla, but the DoE has a better chance of getting our money back with them than with GM or Chrysler I reckon.
Anybody who thinks he should start a car company these days should have his head examined. Development cost of a car is estimated to be in the billions. Establishing a brand takes 10 years and more. If Tier 2 companies don’t have the economies of scale to successfully develop and market a car, if Tier 1 companies go bankrupt or bleed all over their balance sheets, why is it that there are always people who think they are smarter than the market? The world has way too many car companies. The world doesn’t need more.
It’s a good thing that people like Elon don’t think like this.
“Have you heard of Google, Apple iPhone, Twitter or Facebook?”
Of course I have. If you haven’t lived and worked in Silicon Valley from the 1980s through today you probably wouldn’t understand what I’m talking about.
If Tesla could design a car around a power plant based on a urinary trajectory contest, these two clowns could sell 100,000 units a year.
I knew it was going to be good, I can’t wait to see what Martin says back, more emails, more low blows! I do think the roadster is a pretty sweet car, though, and if I had $100000 for a car, I would buy it.
When Martin ran the show he did a great job in at least one field: Publicity. Just about everyone knew about Tesla Motors, and Martin was a superb spokesperson for the company. Martin got Tesla a book of orders which I believe has kept the company’s sales humming to this day. An impressive record by any standard.
How he really did with production is impossible to know, and I suspect the person who creates his first car without making major mistakes does not yet exist. And the end result is a vehicle much loved by owners.
If I were Musk, and if Musk’s story was true, I would have kept Martin on as the public face of the company and had others take over engineering. Musk clearly is not nearly as talented a public image guy as Martin. When Musk took over I immediately took Martin’s side and grew to dislike Musk.
If I was owed substantial amounts of money, and the person owing refused to pay, I would certainly sue them however great a company I thought they had. This is especially true thanks to the contract with Daimler, which gives them substantial funding and enough to pay off Martin.
In short, Martin has to sue and I hope he will get a reward commesurate with his contribution. He founded the company and he did an enormous amount of initial research and legwork, all of which he deserves to be compensated for.
D