@starkmiriam #Musk ended up mortgaging everything he had to save the company that #Eberhard nearly ran into the ground. And thankfully, it worked (mainly due to an investment by #Daimler to build an electric Smart car - if it had come a week later, paychecks would have bounced).

#ElonMusk kept resisting becoming the CEO because he was busy with #SpaceX; after the company's third CEO left, he finally accepted (becoming the fourth) it in late 2008.

@filmcritic Also, the fact that you think that #Tesla fans aren't familiar with #Eberhard... I mean, where to even start? That's like saying, "#Apple fans don't know that there was this guy named #Wozniak...."

@terihannigan @dominicvfx Also always left out of this story: #Eberhard was independently wealthy. He had just sold off his company NuvoMedia to Gemstar for $187M. Yet he put very little of his own money into the company; it was #Musk who risked everything he owned to save it, having to clean up Eberhard's mess.

Literally, Eberhard was telling the board that the cars were going to cost a little over half what his actual numbers said they were going to cost.

@terihannigan @dominicvfx Tesla did not "come from the work of #Eberhard and #Tarpenning". When #Musk and Eberhard/Tarpenning joined forces, (A) Musk was already working on exactly the same project, even with the same ACP powertrain (only on a Noble chassis), and (B) Tesla was a shell company with no tech of its own and not even the legal rights to its own name. And they did not "step down"; Eberhard was fired by the board (even his own appointee) for stringing them along on a pack of lies.

@demiguru @davetroy @Tnicholsmd And to be explicit, #Tesla wasn't "bought out". Tesla was a shell company. It had no tech to its name - it was all ACP's. It didn't even own the trademark to its own name. No money changed hands. And - key point - ***#Eberhard was independently wealthy***. He had recently sold his compan NuvoMedia to #Gemstar for $187M.

@demiguru @davetroy @Tnicholsmd Sorry, but this is revisionist history.

Both of #Musk's' early companies were mergers between pairs of startups, but he was *absolutely* working on them on his own at the time of the merger. #Paypal Inc was the merger of Musk's X.com and #Thiel's Confinity. And when Elon and #Eberhard merged their forces, #Elon was already working on a converted #Noble with ACP's powertrain (while Eberhard was working on a #Lotus with ACP's powertrain).