Tesla, Inc.

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

Tesla was incorporated on July 1, 2003, by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, who served as CEO and CFO respectively. Ian Wright joined a few months later. In February 2004, Elon Musk led the company's first funding round, contributing $6.5 million of a $7.5 million raise, and became chairman. A 2009 lawsuit settlement allows all five—Eberhard, Tarpenning, Wright, Musk, and J. B. Straubel—to call themselves co-founders. The company began production of its first car, the Roadster sports car, in 2008; the Model S sedan in 2012; the Model X SUV in 2015; the Model 3 sedan in 2017; the Model Y crossover in 2020; the Tesla Semi truck in 2022; and the Cybertruck pickup truck in 2023. In 2024, the company led the battery electric vehicle market with a 17.6% share.

Reader's Guide

Tesla's significance lies in its role as a pioneer in the mass-market battery electric vehicle industry, achieving the world's best-selling electric car with the Model 3 from 2018 to 2021. It became the world's most valuable automaker in July 2020 and briefly reached a $1 trillion valuation multiple times: from October 2021 to March 2022, between November 2024 and February 2025, and from May 2025 to July 2026. However, its legacy is complicated by persistent controversies: allegations of whistleblower retaliation, worker rights violations such as sexual harassment and anti-union activities, safety defects leading to dozens of recalls, and overpromising on driving assist technology and product release timelines. The company lost its status as the world's leading manufacturer of electric vehicles by the end of 2025. In November 2025, Tesla approved a pay package worth $1 trillion for Musk, to be received over 10 years if he meets specific goals.

Did You Know?

• Tesla was named after inventor and electrical engineer Nikola Tesla.
• The company's first car, the Roadster, began production in 2008 inside the service bays of a former Chevrolet dealership in Menlo Park.
• Tesla received a $465 million government loan from the U.S. Department of Energy in January 2010, which was critical to creating the Model S and was repaid in full.
• In 2013, the Model S became the first electric car to top the monthly sales ranking of a country, when it topped Norway's new car sales list in September.
• Tesla became the first American car company to go public via an IPO since Ford Motor Company in 1956, doing so on June 29, 2010.