At that point Tesla was 3 guys with an idea and no money. They got $7.5M of investment, of which $6.5M was Musk's money (and he became chairman). I count that as "starting Tesla", as without his money nothing would happen (first big money from other investors came 2 years later).
This is a super tired, wrong talking point. Tesla was basically nothing when Elon bought it. He effectively just bought the name. It's also a tired talking point because even if there was some meaningfully well-developed product he was buying at the time, he still grew the company from basically non-existent to one of the best car manufacturers in the world, which is 99.9% of what matters.
If we're going to criticize people I wish we'd stick to real things to criticize, because there are plenty with Elon. Making stuff up like this just makes anti-Elon people look ridiculous.
oskarkk|4 months ago
inemesitaffia|4 months ago
They had more cash than Musk put in.
They didn't even have the right to the name. Had to buy it from some Euro company
93po|4 months ago
If we're going to criticize people I wish we'd stick to real things to criticize, because there are plenty with Elon. Making stuff up like this just makes anti-Elon people look ridiculous.