The Wikipedia "Tesla, Inc." and "History of Tesla, Inc." pages both say explicitly that the company was founded in July 2003 by two other people and that Musk joined in February 2004. Is that wrong? If not, what retconning do you see on Wikipedia?
From the wikipedia page: "Eberhard and Tarpenning were the original founders and incorporated Tesla, while Musk, Straubel and Wright joined in a Series A round later on. A lawsuit settlement agreed to by Eberhard and Tesla in September 2009 allows all five to call themselves founders."
Yeah, I’m not seeing that in the history of the page either. I didn’t do an exhaustive study, but all the versions I see say that Musk joined after Tesla’s inception.
Well why is Musk listed as a Founder in the side bar then?
Here's a quote from the article: "Eberhard and Tarpenning were the original founders and incorporated Tesla, while Musk, Straubel and Wright joined in a Series A round later on. A lawsuit settlement agreed to by Eberhard and Tesla in September 2009 allows all five to call themselves founders."
Founder is a label assigned by a company, it doesn't have the absolute meaning you appear to think it has. Two of the three Silicon Valley startups I've founded have founders who were not full-time on day zero.
Like the "World's greatest dad" cups? Actually "founder" has a pretty clear definition: a person who establishes an institution or settlement. If Tesla wants to use it internally with a different meaning that's their prerogative of course. But outside of the company that meaning of "founder" will not follow. Like a non-routable IP if you wish.
Otherwise it's not too dissimilar to this guy [0] who copyrighted a software called "EMAIL" so now goes around claiming he invented email (years after the real thing was used). Although this guy at least has a copyright.
I'm not sure why you mention "full-time". A founder is someone involved from day zero or at least before and up to incorporation. Whether they spend time or money doesn't matter. What matters is when
If you're talking about people who have plans to join the startup at day zero but will only manage it a month or so after founding due to logistics, then it's more interesting. It gets more debatable.
However, Musk isn't a founder since he was not involved until the series A as far as I'm aware. Despite what Tesla and Eberhard agreed to, I don't think he's a founder.
I mentioned "full time" because in one of the two cases, the person labeled "Founder" was there on day zero, but only in a minor capacity. There's no concise way to express that concept, and I suppose I chose poorly :-)
