Another Iceberg, Right Ahead 221
the company in 2003 before Elon came in as an investor,
so Eberhard wanted to be recognized as one of the co-
founders. Elon, however, argued that Tesla was just an
empty shell when he arrived. “He [Eberhard] had no tech-
nology of his own, he did not have a prototype car and
he owned no intellectual property relating to electric cars.
All he had was a business plan to commercialize the AC
Propulsion tzero electric sports car concept.”^230
Another part of the lawsuit claimed that Elon had lied
about how he dropped out from a PhD program and his
degree in physics. The lawsuit said:
In several national publications, Musk has al-
legedly misrepresented his affiliation with Stan-
ford University, claiming to have “dropped
out” of a PhD program at that university when
in fact he was never enrolled at Stanford.
Musk has falsely claimed to have a degree
in Physics from the University of Pennsyl-
vania that he obtained in 1995, when he in
fact has no such degree and the only degree
he holds was obtained later than that. Upon
information and belief, Musk’s only known
undergraduate degree is a Bachelor of Science
in Economics, obtained from the University of
Pennsylvania in May 1997.^454Because of these allegations, Tesla sued Eberhard. “This
lawsuit is an unfair personal attack and, more importantly,