In a recent interview with Tesla Silicon Valley Club, Tesla CEO Elon Musk talked about Tesla's early entrepreneurial history and how Tesla and SpaceX nearly went bankrupt in the development process, and said that he had two biggest "enemies". Musk's number one enemy is Tesla co-founder martineberhard. There are some arguments about who founded Tesla, many of which come from Eberhard.
Mr musk said Mr Eberhard had launched a campaign to take the credit for setting up the company.
"He's the worst person I've ever worked with," Musk said. "I've worked with some real jerks."
Musk said that the idea of Tesla and electric vehicles came from a lunch meeting with another co-founder, JB Straubel. The two discussed electric vehicles and battery technology, and finally tested a car of AC propulsion.
Musk and Straubel were introduced to other people interested in the commercialization of electric vehicles,
Musk said that at that time Eberhard and others had nothing that could be regarded as a company, but a shell company without employees and intellectual property rights. Everyone has only the idea of commercialization.
"There are no companies," he said bluntly
Musk said that if he hadn't met other Tesla co founders, he thought he might only start a company with strauber, so that "there won't be so much sadness along the way".
He said: "I will continue to move forward and create Tesla. Many dramatic things can be avoided in the early stage."
Eberhard was eventually fired by Tesla, but is still considered to be the co-founder of Tesla.
"I wish I had never met martineberhard," Musk said. "He was definitely the worst."
Despite his disdain for Eberhard, musk still listed Eberhard as one of Tesla's five co founders.
Invest in Tesla
Musk liked the name Tesla Motors and tried to obtain copyright. At that time, the owner of the trademark was someone in Sacramento. Musk recalled that he paid about $75000 for the trademark, which was a lot of money at that time.
Musk said that it was important for him to invest in the company, and stressed that the important thing was that Eberhard could have done well. But "Eberhard was reluctant to venture into the company."
Musk recalled that Eberhard had a successful company before Tesla was founded. He lived in a $10million mansion at that time. Musk said that Eberhard could have made the same investment in Tesla.
From the very beginning, musk was responsible for overseeing Tesla's products and served as what he called the chief product officer. He said that it is rare that the chief product officer is also a corporate investor, which makes people confused about the origin of the company.
Musk said, "if you are not ready to invest yourself, why should you let others invest?"
Musk said that after the change of management, many changes have taken place in automobile design and production, and musk has also changed from chief product officer to CEO.
Near bankruptcy
A story musk has told for many years is how close Tesla is to bankruptcy. In 2008, the company was difficult to obtain financing and was on the verge of bankruptcy.
"From 2008 to 2012, bankruptcy kept knocking," Musk said
He said that when he sold PayPal in 2008, there was still $40million left. When Tesla and SpaceX, the two companies he founded, were in trouble, one of the hardest decisions he had to make was how to deal with the $40million. Musk recalled that he could have invested all his money in either Tesla or SpaceX to increase the company's chances of success.
But in the end, he divided the money into two parts and invested in the two companies respectively, because he thought that these companies were like his own children, "how can you make a child starve?"
Tesla has also obtained investments from some existing investors and vantagepoint. Musk called vantagepoint "the worst venture investor on earth" and called vantagepoint co-founder Alan Salzman his second enemy.
"What an asshole," he said of Salzman.
Musk said that Salzman was the "bastard" second only to Eberhard. He recalled that Salzman wanted Tesla to go bankrupt and prevented other investors from supporting Tesla because he had the right to block equity financing.
SpaceX's fourth launch was a success, reaching its intended orbit. Musk said that if the launch did not succeed, SpaceX would go bankrupt.