Remember that whole sour grapes law suit filed against Tesla Motors and Elon Musk by co-founder and former CEO Martin Eberhard? According to Eberhard’s lawyer, he has dropped the suit but doesn’t give any clarification as to why Eberhard dismissed the legal action, according to the San Jose Business Journal.
We reported earlier this summer that Eberhard filed a lawsuit against Tesla and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, citing allegations of slander, libel and breach of contract. Eberhard made many outrageous accusations, alleging that Musk “compromised Tesla Motors’ financial health.” Eberhard also said that Musk began a smear campaign against Eberhard on media outlets, accusing Musk of pushing him out of the company that he founded and taking full credit for developing the first electric car the company produced, the Roadster. Eberhard also claimed that Musk not only falsely said that he was the founder of the company, but has also misrepresented his past roles, including the extent of his involvement with the company he founded, PayPal.
Tesla immediately issued a short statement when the lawsuit was filed, calling the lawsuit a “fictionalized account of Tesla’s early years.” Musk then took to Tesla’s blog to give his own lengthy and in-depth version of the messy situation, defending his education and past professional roles and his role as CEO of Tesla.
According to reports, a judge recently ruled that the lawsuit could move forward after Tesla filed a motion to dismiss in late June. Apart from the lawsuit debacle, this summer has proved to be a positive one for Tesla, which achieved profitability in July with approximately $1 million of earnings on revenue of $20 million, thanks to improved margins on its sports car, the Roadster. Tesla Motors also recently announced that the company will build a powertrain assembly facility in Palo Alto, which will also house the corporate headquarters, engineering and R&D departments.
one thing is very true as far as I know and that is the elon Musk is NOT the founder of PayPal. He was the founder of x.com.
seriously — how long until this company goes bankrupt?
profitability? pffft. that’s hilarious. has there ever been a more defensive statement of profitability in history?
when the real numbers come out, nobody will be surprised.
They claim they were profitable in July.
Apparently they made $20M in revenues in July selling 109 cars out of which they made $1M in profits. Given the average price of the roadster, almost half that money had to come from things other than car sales, like the sale of batteries to Daimler, some of which is a one-time revenue. They claim they did not include deposits in the revenue above.
Their costs which presumably are mostly in the production of the car and its sales is going to be recurring. And they are spending a lot on building new dealerships. They will have to almost double their sales to be profitable on the car business alone.
I think July will be a one-of due to the non-car sales related revenue.
I wonder how much they settled with Martin for.
Who would want to sue such an awesome rock band?!?!?
Siiiigns, siigns, everywhere’s signs…
oh yeah, elon on guitar!
But an affordable version of the Roadster made in decent quantities is just around the corner, right?
ha ha, haters go to hell.
no way he settled with eberhart.
It is important to point out that being profitable for one month is not the same as being profitable long term, but you can hardly blame a fresh company embarking on such an ambitious project for not being immediately profitable. The model looks pretty sound. Sales are strong and should be even stronger as the economy recovers. You can also expect costs to come down significantly as later versions of the roadster and model S are produced and volume increases.
Moreover, the Roadster really is a glorious engineering feat. They have shown what is possible to achieve with an all electric car – something hugely important for the future. And it hasn’t been half assed – The roadster’s efficiency is better than many other electric cars such as the REVA G-Whiz (world’s most popular electric car to date) which had to make all sorts of compromises on size/range/speed.
Great to hear they got this lawsuit chucked out and the can continue what they are doing.