Quote:
Originally Posted by FLuXeXigeS
isnt one of their owners from GOOGLE or some kinf of dotcom multi billion dollar company, if so thats chump change to them, and since the 1st run is all spoken for, its not such a bad idea  |
from wikipedia:
"Financing and Organization
The initial, Series A investment round of USD$7.5 million was led by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk in April 2004 and included Compass Technology Partners. Mr. Musk became Tesla's Chairman of the Board and in February 2005, led Tesla Motors' second, USD$13 million Series B investment round which added Valor Equity Partners to the funding team. Mr. Musk co-led the third, USD$40 million Series C round in May 2006 along with VantagePoint Venture Partners. Tesla's third round included investment from prominent entrepreneurs including Google co-founders Sergey Brin & Larry Page, former eBay President Jeff Skoll, Hyatt heir Nick Pritzker and added the VC firms Draper, Fisher, Jurvetson, Capricorn Management and The Bay Area Equity Fund Managed by JP Morgan.[1]
The fourth, Series D round in May 2007 added another USD$45 million and brought the total investments to over $105 million USD through private financing. Elon Musk, who was President of PayPal before it was bought by eBay, has contributed $37 million of his own money to the company. In August, 2007 Martin Eberhard was replaced by an interim CEO, Michael Marks. In December 2007, Ze'ev Drori became the permanent CEO and President of Tesla Motors. As of January 2008, Tesla Motors had quietly fired several key personnel that had been involved from the inception after a performance review by the new CEO.[2] [3]"