The Electric Stars 166
In April 2004, after a two-hour meeting, Elon decided
to invest $6.3 million in the company Tesla Motors.^196 “It’s
kind of crazy, who in their right mind would start a car
company?” Elon asked. “But I guess I have more than my
fair share of hubris. I’ll do it. I’m in, we’ll draw up the
paperwork, but we have to close it in three weeks, because
my wife is having twins and if we don’t get it done by then
it’s not going to happen.”^205 Elon wasn’t the only investor,
but he contributed with 98 percent of the funding. The
other investors consisted of smaller venture capital firms
and individuals like Eberhard.199,209
But the founders of Tesla and Elon didn’t agree on all
points. The main difference was that Elon had a larger
vision. While he wanted to build a company as large as
General Motors, the founders wanted to build a small
company. “Well, there are a few things that I disagreed in
what they showed,” Elon said. “I didn’t want to be a niche
sports car company. I wanted it to be something that would
aim for the mass market as soon as possible.”^199 But Tesla
didn’t have any other options. Tesla needed a deal with
Elon far more than Elon needed an investment in Tesla.
“You take money from the people who offer it to you,”
Eberhard said. “People think I’m some kind of rich guy,
but I’m not. I still clean the bathrooms in my house, I wash
my own laundry, I change my children’s nappies.”196,205
The total number of employees at Tesla was now five.
Eberhard became the CEO, Tarpenning became the CFO,