Tesla Airs Its Dirty Laundry

"Have you heard of Google, Apple iPhone, Twitter or Facebook?" Of course I have. If you haven't lived and worked in Silicon Valley from the 1980s through today you probably wouldn't understand what I'm talking about.

If Tesla could design a car around a power plant based on a urinary trajectory contest, these two clowns could sell 100,000 units a year.

I knew it was going to be good, I can't wait to see what Martin says back, more emails, more low blows! I do think the roadster is a pretty sweet car, though, and if I had $100000 for a car, I would buy it.

When Martin ran the show he did a great job in at least one field: Publicity. Just about everyone knew about Tesla Motors, and Martin was a superb spokesperson for the company. Martin got Tesla a book of orders which I believe has kept the company's sales humming to this day. An impressive record by any standard. How he really did with production is impossible to know, and I suspect the person who creates his first car without making major mistakes does not yet exist. And the end result is a vehicle much loved by owners. If I were Musk, and if Musk's story was true, I would have kept Martin on as the public face of the company and had others take over engineering. Musk clearly is not nearly as talented a public image guy as Martin. When Musk took over I immediately took Martin's side and grew to dislike Musk. If I was owed substantial amounts of money, and the person owing refused to pay, I would certainly sue them however great a company I thought they had. This is especially true thanks to the contract with Daimler, which gives them substantial funding and enough to pay off Martin. In short, Martin has to sue and I hope he will get a reward commesurate with his contribution. He founded the company and he did an enormous amount of initial research and legwork, all of which he deserves to be compensated for. D