Zoomi Life

Tesla has announced that they expect to be profitable before the end of July, as was expected and announced in February.  While some questioned that the company would ever become profitable, battery sales greatly augmented pre-sales and purchases of the Tesla Roadster.  New deals with Daimler and others didn’t hurt either.

Meanwhile, if you haven’t heard, former Tesla Motors CEO Martin Eberhard has filed suit against the company and against current CEO Elon Musk for breech of contract, slander, and libel.  Plenty of controversy and (possible) mis-reporting has been swirling around this lawsuit.

When you’re a half-billion dollar company and your CEO is a certified billionaire, you tend to tread lightly when responding to claims in a pending lawsuit.  Tesla has been relatively quiet on this front, probably despite the inclinations of Musk, who’s usually quite verbal about his views.

Tesla has finally issued an official response to many of the claims made by Eberhard.  In an extensive blog post, Musk attempts to “correct several misconceptions propagated by Martin that are now being reported as truth.”

In his blog post, Musk goes over some of the history of Tesla Motors, including how he met Ebehard and how they co-founded the company together. He goes on to detail why the company sent Eberhard packing and why they feel justified in doing so.

One thing is for sure: since the entrance of Musk into the leadership of Tesla Motors, the Roadster’s costs have dropped from $140,000 per unit (in the beginning) to $80,000 now with further drops expected.  The car’s production has increased to 20-30 units/week and is expected to nearly double in the next year or so.

Eberhard contends that Musk sabotaged his leadership and says that the current claims by Musk and the Board of Directors of Tesla about the forward-looking estimates that Eberhard made were not agreements, but only speculation about how things were going. Unforseen changes in the car’s design, production requirements, and other issues were what changed those numbers, according to Eberhard.

Regardless of which side of this argument you believe, the lawsuit is probably going to drag on for some time unless Tesla settles with their former CEO and moves on.  Given the claims being made, the youth of the company, and the money likely involved, that may be the best route for them to take.