Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning founded Tesla. Elon Musk joined the board as part of their Series A a year later, and then became the CEO a few years after that.

That's because after he took over complete control he retroactively titled himself a “founder” even though he was not, in fact, involved in founding the company (he was the leading funder of their Series A, and has been the main stockholder since then, but “funder” and “founder” aren't the same thing.)

Musk may be brilliant, but he's got a long history of a slippery relationship with the truth.

That's because his PR team has pushed that narrative for years. He wasn't a founder however.