Been looking into Tesla's financials from a few years back and there's actually an interesting angle most people overlook when discussing the company's founding story.

So everyone knows Elon runs the show now, but Tesla's origin story involves five founders - and one of them, Martin Eberhard, basically got pushed out early on. Eberhard was one of the original two founders alongside Marc Tarpenning back in 2003. After he got ousted, the other three - Musk, Straubel, and Wright - were named co-founders following a court settlement. Wild how corporate drama can reshape a company's narrative, right?

What's interesting is tracking how the wealth distribution played out. Elon Musk's net worth hit around $278.8 billion by mid-2022, making him the world's richest person at that time. Meanwhile, Martin Eberhard's net worth never reached anywhere near those levels despite being instrumental in getting Tesla off the ground. There's definitely a lesson there about timing, positioning, and who ends up controlling the narrative.

Looking at Tesla itself around that period - mid-2022 - the company was valued at roughly $962 billion in market cap, though it had briefly crossed $1 trillion earlier. The stock had been on a wild ride, ranging from $620 to $1,243 in that 52-week window. Revenue was solid at $57.8 billion for 2021, with profits around $5.5 billion.

What caught my attention was how much institutional money was actually in Tesla at that point. Vanguard, BlackRock, and other asset managers controlled about 42.8% of all shares. The Model 3 was already the best-selling EV ever, and they'd just announced a 3:1 stock split.

But here's where it gets interesting - despite all the growth, some analysts were already skeptical. Citi's Itay Michaeli had a sell rating, questioning whether the valuation made sense given the autonomous driving challenges and slowing economy signals. That said, most of the 23 analysts covering it still leaned bullish, with an average price target around $879.

The supply chain issues were real though. Even with record production rates, Tesla was dealing with semiconductor shortages, logistics problems, and factory capacity constraints. Still, they showed resilience and had enough cash to fund expansion - partly because they'd liquidated about 75% of their bitcoin holdings earlier that year for nearly $1 billion.

So whether Tesla was worth the hype back then? That really depended on your perspective. Some saw it as the future of transportation and energy. Others thought the runup was too aggressive. Either way, it's a reminder that even co-founders like Martin Eberhard don't always end up with the lion's share of the wealth their companies generate.