Another Iceberg, Right Ahead 222
paints an inaccurate picture of Tesla’s history,” the com-
pany said. “This lawsuit is a fictionalized account of Tesla’s
early years – it’s twisted and wrong, and we welcome the
opportunity to set the record straight.”^208
Eberhard had a blog called theTesla Founder’s Blog
where he, among other topics, documented comments from
current and previous employees. “The company has changed
so tremendously since I started,” one blog post said. “It’s
very secretive and cold now. It’s like they’re trying to
root out and destroy any of its heart that might still be
beating.” Elon fought back. “I was too busy trying to fix
the fucking mess he left,” Elon said. “I haven’t had time to
tell my story. I will say, I have never met someone who
is as capable of creating such a disinformation campaign
as Martin Eberhard.”^196 Eventually they settled through
mediation.^54
When Eberhard worked as CEO of Tesla, he used to
question every engineering assumption. It’s something you
should do when creating a new company. “Technically
he [Eberhard] is just brilliant, and he has a tenacity that
is unbelievable,” an early investor in Tesla said. “He is
the guy you want around in those early days when you
have naysayers all around.” Elon, however, argued that
Tesla had to redo everything Eberhard was responsible
for. “The real reason that the development of the Roadster
cost so much more than can be accounted for by typical
entrepreneurial hubris is that we essentially had to spend
the development money twice,” Elon said. “After Eberhard
was asked to step down from the CEO role, almost every