[slrainka]

Not the founder? maybe read Walter Isaacson's book.

Stock graph shows Tesla stock had no material impact from the Solar City purchase, 90% of it's value coming after 2020. Today, Tesla energy and solar dominates the industry to the point where every installer offers Tesla Solar including the largest US installer Sunrun.

[Retric]

> Not the founder? maybe read Walter Isaacson's book.

The company was founded in July 1 2003, Musk didn’t even hear about the company until 2004. That’s a rather large gap to call someone a founder. But hey it’s an arbitrary distinction so feel free to disagree.

> Stock graph shows Tesla had no material impact from the Solar City Purchase

From the announcement of the purchase to its completion Tesla’s stock dropped ~20%.

Buying or creating a solar company in house made sense, over paying to bail out a relatives solar company he was involved with didn’t. Solar City was in 1.5 Billion dollars in debt, their business model was failing, and they had just laid off 20% of their workforce so yea Tesla shareholders got hosed.

[WalterBright]

Tesla was nothing but two guys, a name, an office, and an idea when Musk invested $6.5 million into it. They had no technology, no car, no money, no nothing. That makes Musk a founder.

[Retric]

No, that makes Musk one of two series A investors.

> two guys, a name, an office, and an idea

Add in the paperwork they filled out and we call those things companies. The entire point of incubators like Ycombinator is getting companies to a point where someone would make a significant investment, Martin Eberhard, Marc Tarpenning and Ian Wright who joined a few months later pulled that first major hurdle off on their own.

If Musk had walked away they would’ve just kept looking because it was a very compelling investment as made clear by finding funding within a month of looking and the 1 million put up from a 3rd party.