After waiting for a decade, Elon Musk has gained control of Tesla.com as a Silicon Valley engineer finally gave up the domain name. This means that when visitors head to Tesla.com, they are now being rerouted to TeslaMotors.com.
The news was confirmed by Tesla spokeswoman Khobi Brooklyn on Friday, as reported by Bloomberg.
With the change in ownership of the domain name, rumor has it that the company is now likely to alter its official name from Tesla Motors to Tesla, which could grow further into its electric vehicle and energy businesses.
During the introduction of its Tesla Energy last year, Musk was asked if he had the intention to modify the company's name from Tesla Motors to Tesla to indicate that the automaker would soon be shifting its gears to manufacturing its stationary batteries. He responded by saying there had been domain problems.
The Tesla.com domain name was owned by Stu Grossman, a fan of Nikola Tesla, since 1992. John Berryhill, a lawyer who represented him in a dispute with Tesla Industries Inc., says that Grossman kept the website name for private use. Berryhill also says the man had been approached by a number of people with regard to giving up the domain name.
“Mr. Grossman is an engineer and a big fan of Nikola Tesla,” says Berryhill. “He’s had it, and now Tesla the auto company got it," adding that he believes this was a voluntary arrangement.
What's un clear is whether or not Tesla purchased the domain name from Grossman. Bloomberg says Grossman could not be reached for comment while Tesla's spokeswoman refused to provide a comment regarding the domain change, apart from confirming that Tesla Motors has gotten its hands on it.
In a related news, it seems Tesla is keen on widening its reach as the company's boss said late last month that he wants a Tesla Manufacturing Plant within the borders of China by mid-2016.
One of the reasons why Tesla wishes to build its electric cars in the country is that the Chinese government urges its citizens to go full electric. Tesla also adds that it wants to fend off the prohibitive import tax imposed by the local government.
