Well history has a peculiar habit I daresay , of distorting itself in favour of a certain grandiosity . Born and raised in US. He runs Wrightspeed which puts electric power-trains in trucks and has a big d. Eberhard served as Tesla's original chairman, and its CEO until late 2007. Until 2008, Marc was the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Vice President of Tesla. in computer science in 1985. Marc Tarpenning was born on 1 June, 1964 in Sacramento, California, United States, is an Entrepreneur, Engineer, Co-founder of Tesla. If Musk Had not assumed full control Tesla would. He received a BS in Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1982 and an MS in Electrical Engineering from the same school in 1984. Two engineers from Silicon Valley — Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning established the company in 2003 with . The company was founded by Jeffrey B. Straubel, Elon Reeve Musk, Martin Eberhard, and Marc Tarpenning on July 1, 2003 and is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA. . Marc Tarpenning, Spero partner & Tesla co-founder, joins board of ... While Musk is synonymous with the electric car company, he actually wasn't one of its founders. Musk had already made a decent chunk of his fortune founding online transaction facilitator PayPal, making his first billion when he and the other investors sold the company to eBay (via Biography). Later Lotus Cars became the contract car manufacturers of Tesla. Marc Tarpenning was born in Sacramento, California, on June 1, 1964. Sixteen years ago, engineer-entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning incorporated a company that was, for the most part, a legitimate long shot . New book excerpt: The early days of Tesla - Charged EVs "Major credit to AC Propulsion for the Tzero electric sports car 1997-2003 . Jim Raxnor on Twitter