<ul><li>Martin Eberhard spoke about his seven-month old startup Tiveni to Business Insider. </li><li>Tiveni is working on battery systems that it intends to sell to electric car makers and as well green energy companies. </li><li>This is Eberhard’s fourth startup after Tesla, NuvoMedia, and Network Computing Devices.</li></ul>Martin Eberhard founded Tesla -- and was its first CEO for four years-- in 2003 along with Marc Tarpenning. But he was forced out of the company after a fall-out and a legal battle with Elon Musk. Eberhard is now a co-founder of yet another startup, Tiveni, which is working on power storage systems that will power not only electric vehicles, but also other energy products. “We have working prototypes of manufacturing technologies and unique processes that makes the systems very cheap. We take the manufacturing time for making a battery system to one-twentieth of the time it takes now,” Eberhard revealed in an exclusive interview with Business Insider. Heiner Fees is a partner who brings in nearly 30 years of experience in automobile engineering from Germany. A third partner Mike Mckovsky is a veteran from the solar industry, Eberhard said. The venture is seven months old, according to LinkedIn. “We are still quiet about it. If you go to our website it says nothing. My interest is in energy storage because it is the key technology both for electric cars and for green energy production. You need to have energy storage to make solar and wind energy scalable. I have been working on how to make battery systems cheaper, safer and more reliable,” Eberhard said. This is a fourth startup that Eberhard has been one of the founders in, Tesla being the most famous of them all. Before Tesla, Eberhard sold his electronic publishing platform NuvoMedia. “That company was acquired unexpectedly in January 2000. Little later on in 2000 is when we hit this giant crash in Silicon Valley and, man, was I happy,” an ecstatic Eberhard said. “We had sold the company, we had lucked out,” he added. His first venture was Network Computing Devices in 1987. “I was one of six founders in a company called NCD that was making high-end graphics terminals when that sort of thing mattered. IPO was in 1991,” Eberhard said.

Revealed: Tesla’s co-founder has a new startup in Silicon Valley

<ul class="summary-list"><li>In a Twitter thread Sunday, Elon Musk defended his role in Tesla's early history.</li><li>The Tesla CEO took a dig at the electric-car maker's cofounder Martin Eberhard.</li></ul>Elon Musk Sunday defended his role in Tesla's early history and took a dig at Martin Eberhard, one of the founders of the electric-car maker."I was head of product and led the design of the original Roadster," Musk <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1596862790408568836">said</a>. "Eberhard was wealthy and could have risked his money, but was unwilling to do so."The Tesla CEO made the comments in response to a thread on Twitter that said Musk "pushed out" the Tesla founders Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning and "spent the next ten years telling everyone he founded Tesla."<blockquote class="twitter-tweet blockquote" data-lang="en" data-cards="" data-conversation="">—Sam (@SamTwits) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/1596567440917692416?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 26, 2022</a></blockquote>The richest man in the world elaborated, saying he received an honorary degree for his work on Tesla's first car, the original Roadster, and credited himself with getting "Tesla Motors" trademarked, as well as the tesla.com URL.Eberhard told Insider Musk's comments on Tesla's history were "typical" of the billionaire."Not one sentence of that tweet is true," Eberhard told Insider. "Why he continues to spew lies about me 15 years after I left Tesla says more about Musk than anything else."Musk's role in Tesla's early days has been a point of contention in the past. In 2009, Eberhard <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/most-important-moments-tesla-history-2017-2#february-2004-elon-musk-invests-2">sued</a> Musk, alleging libel and slander because Musk started calling himself Tesla's founder. That same year, the lawsuit was <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-founders-end-bitter-legal-fight-2009-9">settled</a> for an undisclosed amount with the condition that Musk and two other Tesla executives, JB Straubel and Ian Wright, could also claim the title of Tesla founder. Today, Musk is listed as a cofounder of Tesla on the carmaker's <a href="https://www.tesla.com/elon-musk">website</a>.Eberhard and Tarpenning incorporated the company in 2003. Eberhard came up with the idea for an electric-car startup in 2000 after Tarpenning and he sold their e-book company, NuvoMedia, for $187 million, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-the-origin-story-2014-10">Drake Baer reported for Insider in 2014</a>."I was thinking that I should do what every guy does and buy a sports car," Eberhard told Insider in 2014. "I couldn't bring myself to buy a car that got 18 miles to the gallon at a time when wars in the Middle East seemed to somehow involve oil and the arguments for global warming were becoming undeniable." Not long after, Tesla was founded.Musk, who had money when PayPal sold to Ebay, stepped in to lead the upstart's Series A funding round in 2004, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/most-important-moments-tesla-history-2017-2#february-2004-elon-musk-invests-2">contributing</a> $6.5 million and joining Tesla's board as chair after Eberhard pitched Tesla to him over email as "a company with very high potential for growth" that could break "the compromise between driving performance and efficiency," <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-the-origin-story-2014-10">Baer reported</a>.The company <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-roadster-history-2016-3">debuted</a> its first car in 2006, generating a media blitz that labeled Eberhard as "<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-the-origin-story-2014-10">Mr. Tesla</a>." At the time, Musk appeared to take offense at the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/19/business/19electric.html?module=Search&amp;mabReward=relbias%3Ar%2C%7B%221%22%3A%22RI%3A11%22%7D&amp;_r=0">lack of media coverage</a> around his involvement in Tesla and even <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-elon-musk-ruthlessly-fired-anyone-who-disagreed-spacex-report-2021-8">threatened</a> to sever ties with the company's press-relations firm over the stories. Eberhard told Baer it was the first time he butted heads with Musk.It was far from the last.Musk, who officially became CEO of the company in 2008, has <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-deletes-tweet-attacking-tesla-co-founder-martin-eberhard-2019-6">repeatedly disparaged</a> Eberhard. Last year, Musk <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1459324304852762629?lang=en">said</a> Eberhard was "by far the worst person I've ever worked with in my entire career," adding that the cofounder came "close to killing Tesla."Do you work for Tesla or have insight to share? Reach out to the reporter from a nonwork email at gkay@insider.com

Elon Musk slams Tesla founder Martin Eberhard in response to a tweet about the company's origin: He 'could have risked his money, but was unwilling to do so'

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Revealed: Tesla’s co-founder has a new startup in Silicon Valley

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Elon Musk slams Tesla founder Martin Eberhard in response to a tweet about the company's origin: He 'could have risked his money, but was unwilling to do so'

Grace Kay

Ousted Tesla cofounder Martin Eberhard sounds off on Elon Musk, how the company has changed, and the EV wars

Grace Kay

The Making Of Tesla: Invention, Betrayal, And The Birth Of The Roadster

Drake Baer