Hello there,
Clean energy is every nations dream. The US always talks about divorcing itself from buying oil from rogue states.
With all this on their minds, it should come as no surprise that Silicon Valley is stepping up its ambitions in lobbying Washington for more funds to fund innovation.
Tesla Motors, founded by Elon Musk (founder of online payments company PayPal), is taking his ambitious plans to Washington, with an appeal for a 400 million dollar loan.
Unfortunately, his plan has not been without its distractors. Anti-Washington campaigners, those who view the bail-out as nothing but an extension of financing to institutions that caused the credit crisis, or worsening it.
Randall Stross has faced sharp criticism from a Silicon Valley veteran, Jason Calacanis. Calacanis argues that the 400 million dollar bailout or loan for Tesla would be good for innovation because they help America stay at the pinnacle of technology and innovation.
The list of investors and buyers of Tesla Motors' Model S reads like Hollywood's Who is Who: Sergey Brin and Larry Page, among others.
Martin Eberhard, once seen by many as Tesla's true visionary, was kicked out in top management reshuffle undertaken in order to streamline production and boost efficiency.
Elon Musk kicked out Mr. Eberhard around November 2007. He was replaced by someone Elon Musk called an start-up veteran: Ze'ev Drori. Nowadays, Mr. Eberhard is happy to keep a colony of followers on his blog, with stories about the latest stories from Tesla Motors, including cash rebates from California Alternative Fuel Rebate Program
The blog, when you read it, makes you wonder who exactly is in the driver's seat at Tesla.
Surprisingly, those are the issues Elon Musk inherited.