Tesla, Inc.

Tesla, Inc. is an American company that designs, makes and sells electric vehicles and energy storage products, with its headquarters in Austin, Texas. It was incorporated on July 1, 2003, and its 2025 annual report shows total revenue of $94.83 billion and 134,785 employees.

History of Tesla

Tarpenning bought the teslamotors.com domain in April 2003, and Tesla Motors was incorporated on July 1, 2003, in San Carlos, California, by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. The founders named it after the inventor Nikola Tesla. Elon Musk led an early funding round in 2004, investing $7.5 million, and became chairman.

The company unveiled its first car, the Roadster, in 2006 and began shipping it in February 2008. In October 2008 Musk became chief executive, cut 25 percent of the workforce and secured $40 million in new funding. Eberhard and Tarpenning left the company that year.

In 2010 Daimler bought a 10 percent stake, and Tesla received a $465 million loan from the U.S. Department of Energy. Tesla went public in June 2010 in an offering that raised about $226 million, the first by an American car company since Ford in 1956.

Model S deliveries began in June 2012, and the first Supercharger network launched in September 2012 with six stations in California. A factory in Tilburg, the Netherlands, opened in 2013. Tesla reported its first quarterly profit in May 2013. It broke ground on its first Gigafactory in 2014, started Model X deliveries in September 2015 and announced the 100,000th Model S sold in December 2015.

The Model 3 was unveiled in 2016, and the first 30 were delivered in July 2017. Tesla acquired the solar company SolarCity in an all-stock deal in 2016, valued at about $2.6 billion. The company was renamed Tesla, Inc. in 2017, and in December 2021 it moved its legal headquarters to Gigafactory Texas near Austin.

The Model 3 drew a claimed 276,000 pre-orders. The company opened its 10,000th Supercharger in June 2018 and reported building 5,000 Model 3 cars in the last week of July 2018. In August 2018 Musk said he was considering taking Tesla private, though the board said it had not received a formal proposal.

Products and services of Tesla

Tesla’s vehicles include the Roadster, whose production began in 2008, the Model S in 2012, the Model X in 2015, the Model 3 in 2017 and the Model Y in 2020. The Semi truck began deliveries in 2022, and the Cybertruck followed in November 2023. The vehicles are battery-electric, so they rely on lithium-ion battery packs and an electric drivetrain.

Tesla reports two segments, automotive and energy generation and storage. The energy business sells the Powerwall for homes, the Megapack for grid-scale energy storage and solar products. It grew out of Tesla’s battery division and the SolarCity purchase.

The company also runs a global network of Supercharger fast-charging stations. Its 2025 annual report says the network includes a Supercharger for Business program and the use of the North American Charging Standard, known as NACS, in certain markets.

Tesla’s driver-assistance features, including Autopilot, require the driver to remain fully engaged. The company says it launched an autonomous ride-hailing service in 2025, and it warns that changing regulation could delay or restrict these features and the pace of the service. This sits alongside the wider field of autonomous vehicle research.

Corporate structure and operations

Tesla’s headquarters is at 1 Tesla Road in Austin. The 2025 annual report lists U.S. manufacturing facilities in California, New York, Texas and Nevada, plus facilities in China and Germany. Gigafactory Shanghai opened in 2019, and the Berlin and Texas Gigafactories opened in 2022.

Gigafactory Texas builds the Cybertruck and the Model Y. It also hosts the Cortex training cluster, a set of computers used to train the company’s artificial intelligence systems, and a second cluster was under construction at the end of 2025. An in-house lithium refinery in Texas began operations in January 2026.

The company had 134,785 employees on December 31, 2025. Elon Musk serves as chief executive, and the filing gives him the title Technoking of Tesla. Tesla sells directly to customers instead of through franchised dealers, and the filing notes that some dealer associations have challenged that model in court.

Total revenue in 2025 was $94.83 billion, down 2.9 percent from $97.69 billion in 2024. Net income was $3.79 billion, down 46.5 percent from $7.09 billion. The company also reported $8.18 billion in aggregate principal amount of indebtedness at the end of 2025.

Impact of Tesla

Tesla grew from a 2003 start-up into a large manufacturer within the electric vehicle field. Its 2025 annual report describes a global Supercharger network and the use of the NACS charging standard in certain markets, so charging infrastructure is part of its business as well as its cars. In 2025 it also launched an autonomous ride-hailing service, which extends the business from selling vehicles to offering rides, although the filing says that expansion depends on regulation.

The company also ties vehicles to energy. By combining car batteries with Powerwall and Megapack storage, it ties transport and electricity supply in a single business, a link that the SolarCity purchase made explicit in 2016.

Criticism and controversies

Tesla’s driver-assistance systems have drawn regulatory and legal attention. In March 2018 a fatal Model X crash prompted scrutiny of Autopilot. Tesla said the driver’s hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds before the collision, and a preliminary investigation found the car’s speed rose from 62 to 70.8 miles per hour in the three seconds before impact.

The 2025 annual report says the company expects product liability claims and regulatory scrutiny tied to its driver-assistance and autonomous technologies. It generally self-insures against vehicle product liability, which means it pays such costs itself instead of through an outside insurer. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also requires crash reporting for vehicles with advanced driver-assistance systems under a Standing General Order.

The filing adds that as operations have grown, the company faces increased scrutiny, including litigation and government investigations. It may also have to recall vehicles, either voluntarily or at a regulator’s request, even when it disagrees with a defect finding.

Editorially reviewed by Specialty Digest Editorial TeamLast reviewed November 4, 2026Researched and drafted with AI assistanceReport an issue