Tesla and Elon Musk: Company Origins, History, and Milestones

Tesla Motors was incorporated in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, who named it after the inventor Nikola Tesla.^[1][2] In early 2004 Elon Musk led the company's $7.5 million Series A round, contributing most of it, and became chairman of the board.^[1][2] Engineers J. B. Straubel and Ian Wright joined soon after; a later legal settlement allows all five to be called co-founders.^[1]

Musk was involved in the design of the first car from the start, pushing for features such as a carbon-fiber body, and he funded much of the company's early growth personally.^[1][3]

In 2006 Musk published "The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (just between you and me)." It laid out a simple strategy: build a sports car, use that money to build an affordable car, use that money to build an even more affordable car, and provide zero-emission electric power generation along the way.^[4]

The first car, the Roadster, went into production in 2008. Built on a Lotus Elise chassis and powered by thousands of lithium-ion laptop-style cells, it could travel more than 200 miles on a charge — shattering the image of electric cars as slow golf carts.^[1][2][13] After the near-death experience of 2008, when Musk became CEO, Tesla stabilized with investment from Daimler and a U.S. Department of Energy loan that it repaid early in 2013.^[1][5][15]

Tesla went public on the Nasdaq on June 29, 2010, at $17 per share — the first American carmaker to go public since Ford in 1956.^[2][5][10] The same year it bought the former NUMMI plant in Fremont, California.^[2]

The Model S, launched in 2012, was the breakthrough. The sleek sedan offered long range, over-the-air software updates and a large touchscreen, and it won major awards, including Motor Trend's 2013 Car of the Year — the first time the honor went to a car without a combustion engine.^{[2][6][11][12]} Tesla also began building its Supercharger network in 2012, and in 2014 Musk announced that Tesla would not sue anyone who used its patents in good faith, to accelerate the whole industry's shift to electric vehicles.^[7]

The Model X SUV, with its falcon-wing doors, followed in 2015. In 2016 Musk published "Master Plan, Part Deux," which added solar energy, autonomous driving and ride-sharing to the company's goals, and Tesla acquired SolarCity.^[8]

The Model 3, Tesla's first mass-market car, began deliveries in July 2017. Its ramp-up was so difficult that Musk slept at the factory during what he called "production hell," but by 2018 Model 3 was one of the best-selling premium cars in the United States.^[3][6] Gigafactory Shanghai opened in 2019 and set records for speed of construction.^[2]

Deliveries of the Model Y crossover began in 2020, the year Tesla posted its first full year of profit and joined the S&P 500.^[2][5] Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg and Gigafactory Texas, which also serves as company headquarters, opened in 2022.^[2]

The Cybertruck, a stainless-steel pickup unveiled in 2019, began deliveries in November 2023.^[2] That same year the Model Y became the best-selling car in the world, the first time an electric vehicle had achieved the feat.^[6][14] Tesla Energy also grew rapidly, with Megapack utility-scale batteries produced at a dedicated factory in Lathrop, California.^[5]

Tesla's newest chapter centers on artificial intelligence. Its Full Self-Driving software is trained on data from millions of customer cars, and in June 2025 the company launched its Robotaxi service in Austin, Texas.^[5][9] The purpose-built two-seat Cybercab and the Optimus humanoid robot represent what Musk describes as Tesla's biggest future opportunities.^[5][9]

In 2025 Tesla published a fourth-generation plan, "Master Plan Part IV," describing a future of "sustainable abundance" built on AI, robotics and clean energy.^[5]