Elon Musk on the Early Days of Tesla: Interview Part 1
Why Hacker News recommends it
Cited as Musk's own account of Tesla's founding and early financial struggles, often in disputes over the company's history.
What it is
A long interview with Elon Musk at Gigafactory Texas on Tesla's early days, covering why electric vehicles, who founded Tesla, founder departures, Roadster engineering and early funding.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2022 to 2022.
What Hacker News said
Cites ghufran_syed · 2022-07 · on “Twitter Sues Elon Musk”
I think his original plan was to have around $40 million left over even if tesla and spacex failed, but when they both ran into difficulties in 2008-9 IIRC, I think he put the rest of his money into both companies to keep them going [this video] [EDIT: in this interview he talks about the fact he had “no money” and had to borrow money for rent around that time]
Cites yoshieee · 2022-11 · on “Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun”
Also you weren't wrong about Tesla. Elon did basically create Tesla (as well as Straubel). Quick summary: Originally "Tesla" the brand, was started by Martin and Marc, but all they had was a brand and a vision but no physical product nor prototype. At around the same time, Elon wanted to build an electric car based off the tzero by AC Propulsion. He was introduced to Martin and Marc who had a similar vision, and basically Elon invested money into Tesla Motors. It wasn't until Elon put in money, that the first prototype was built (the tesla roadster). Arguably, if Elon didn't join the team and bring on Straubel, Tesla wouldn't be what it is today. Likely wouldn't even have a launched consumer
Cites jjoonathan · 2022-12 · on “Twitter Suspends PG's Account”
> Tesla existed before Musk. So I've watched the Eberhard interview [1] and the Musk counter-interview [2] and I'm still not decided on this. Did Eberhard do a bunch of useful early-day heavy-lifting only to get elbowed out by Musk once things were ticking along and it was time to take credit? Or was he incompetent and un-invested, forcing Musk to reluctantly take back the reins? I'd love to hear an insider opinion, but I'm not going to go digging. I've already spent far too much time today litigating other peoples' bullshit founder drama, lol. [1] [LINK] [2] [this video]