Tak­ing the Wheel was a defin­ing peri­od in Tesla’s his­to­ry, span­ning 2007 and 2008, as lead­er­ship strug­gles and inter­nal ten­sions shaped the company’s future. The chap­ter pri­mar­i­ly focus­es on the removal of Mar­tin Eber­hard, Tesla’s cofounder and orig­i­nal CEO, and Elon Musk’s increas­ing con­trol over the company’s direc­tion. While Eber­hard ini­tial­ly sought to find a suc­ces­sor, acknowl­edg­ing that Tes­la need­ed stronger lead­er­ship to over­come its mount­ing finan­cial and oper­a­tional dif­fi­cul­ties, his depar­ture was far from ami­ca­ble. The com­pa­ny, fac­ing severe cash flow issues, pro­duc­tion delays, and ris­ing costs, was in cri­sis, lead­ing Musk to com­pare the sit­u­a­tion to a burn­ing house that need­ed imme­di­ate inter­ven­tion. Investors were grow­ing wary of Tesla’s finan­cial insta­bil­i­ty, and employ­ees were feel­ing the pres­sure of work­ing at a com­pa­ny that seemed on the verge of col­lapse.

The turn­ing point came dur­ing an August 2007 board meet­ing when Eber­hard failed to present reli­able cost esti­mates for the Roadster’s pro­duc­tion, rein­forc­ing Musk’s grow­ing dis­trust. This was not just a mis­cal­cu­la­tion but a crit­i­cal mis­step, as Musk per­ceived it as an attempt to mis­lead the board about Tesla’s finan­cial health. Although Eber­hard denied any wrong­do­ing, the dam­age was done—shortly after the meet­ing, Musk made the call to remove Eber­hard as CEO. The deci­sion came as a shock to Eber­hard, who had ded­i­cat­ed years to bring­ing Tes­la to life, and the fall­out was swift and bit­ter. Many with­in Tes­la saw this as a nec­es­sary move, giv­en the company’s dire finan­cial sit­u­a­tion, but oth­ers remained loy­al to Eber­hard and were skep­ti­cal of Musk’s grow­ing influ­ence.

Fol­low­ing Eberhard’s dis­missal, cofounder Marc Tarpen­ning also chose to leave Tes­la, sig­nal­ing a broad­er shift in the company’s lead­er­ship. Eber­hard, unwill­ing to go qui­et­ly, took his griev­ances pub­lic, open­ly accus­ing Musk of push­ing him out unfair­ly and attempt­ing to erase his role in Tesla’s foun­da­tion. The sit­u­a­tion esca­lat­ed into a legal bat­tle, with Eber­hard fil­ing a law­suit for libel, claim­ing that Musk was dis­tort­ing the company’s his­to­ry. After a drawn-out dis­pute, a 2009 set­tle­ment allowed both men to retain the offi­cial title of Tes­la cofounder, but the dam­age to their rela­tion­ship was irrepara­ble, high­light­ing the per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al ten­sions that had defined their col­lab­o­ra­tion. This peri­od of con­flict made it clear that Tesla’s path to suc­cess would not be with­out casu­al­ties, as Musk was will­ing to make dif­fi­cult deci­sions to keep the com­pa­ny afloat.

In the wake of Eberhard’s depar­ture, Michael Marks stepped in as inter­im CEO, tasked with sta­bi­liz­ing Tes­la and guid­ing it through its finan­cial trou­bles. How­ev­er, Marks soon clashed with Musk over fun­da­men­tal busi­ness strate­gies, par­tic­u­lar­ly Tesla’s approach to man­u­fac­tur­ing. Marks, a pro­po­nent of tra­di­tion­al auto­mo­tive indus­try prac­tices, advo­cat­ed for out­sourc­ing vehi­cle assem­bly to estab­lished car­mak­ers, argu­ing that it would reduce costs and stream­line pro­duc­tion. Musk, on the oth­er hand, firm­ly believed that Tes­la need­ed full con­trol over its pro­duc­tion process­es to main­tain qual­i­ty and inno­va­tion, lead­ing to grow­ing fric­tion between the two lead­ers. Marks had exten­sive expe­ri­ence in sup­ply chain man­age­ment, but his cau­tious approach con­trast­ed sharply with Musk’s urgency to accel­er­ate Tesla’s growth.

Marks’s tenure was short-lived, as Musk refused to com­pro­mise on his vision for Tesla’s future. Their dis­agree­ments reached a break­ing point when Musk dis­missed Marks’s con­cerns out­right, insist­ing that Tes­la main­tain in-house pro­duc­tion despite its finan­cial strug­gles. This led to Marks’s res­ig­na­tion, fur­ther con­sol­i­dat­ing Musk’s con­trol over the com­pa­ny. In 2008, Ze’ev Drori was appoint­ed as the next CEO, though Musk remained deeply involved in deci­sion-mak­ing, set­ting the stage for his even­tu­al takeover as Tesla’s full-time CEO. As Tesla’s finan­cial strug­gles deep­ened, Musk inject­ed more of his per­son­al wealth into the com­pa­ny, demon­strat­ing his unwa­ver­ing belief in the mis­sion of accel­er­at­ing the world’s tran­si­tion to sus­tain­able ener­gy.

Through­out this tur­bu­lent peri­od, Musk’s lead­er­ship style—characterized by unwa­ver­ing ambi­tion, an aggres­sive approach to prob­lem-solv­ing, and a will­ing­ness to chal­lenge con­ven­tion­al wisdom—became increas­ing­ly evi­dent. His relent­less dri­ve often put him at odds with those around him, yet his vision for Tesla’s future nev­er wavered. Despite the chaos and con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing the company’s lead­er­ship tran­si­tions, Musk’s insis­tence on inno­va­tion and his refusal to bow to indus­try norms played a crit­i­cal role in keep­ing Tes­la afloat. The events of this chap­ter high­light not just the inter­nal pow­er strug­gles with­in Tes­la but also the sheer deter­mi­na­tion required to steer a start­up through near-col­lapse and onto the path of indus­try dis­rup­tion. While some viewed Musk’s approach as ruth­less, his abil­i­ty to nav­i­gate Tes­la through its dark­est days ulti­mate­ly laid the foun­da­tion for the elec­tric vehi­cle rev­o­lu­tion.