He did not start it. He did a hostile takeover and revised the history of Tesla so he could be a cofounder.
Re:Andrej Karpathy leaves Tesla
by fshbbdssbbgdd on Wednesday July 13, 2022 @08:51PM
(#32090646)
I’m no expert on Tesla’s history, but I’m sure it was private back then, and hostile takeovers of private companies are not really a thing.
Correct, yeah. Tesla was founded in mid 2003, Elon became the largest shareholder in early 2004, became the CEO in 2008, and then the company IPOd in mid 2010.[0]
The comment you were replying to definitely seemed quite a bit incoherent with their personal take on what hostile takeovers actually mean.
But in itself, just making on of the best electric cars today would justify a valuation of 1/10 of what Tesla currently have.
I still admire Musk and Tesla for having started the electric revolution. But by 2025 (and maybe already are), they will just be one of many electric car manufacturers - somewhere in the middle of the pack.