People keep saying this, and it makes very little sense. The Tesla that he "didn't found" was a boutique outfit formed to modify another company's obscure sports car to make it run on batteries. That company no longer exists in any sense beyond the name on the business license. The Tesla that exists now is indisputably there because of Musk's ambition, willpower, and engineering instincts, for better or worse.
By "another company's obscure sports car" I assume you're referring to the Lotus Elise - arguably one of the world's better known and more successful sports cars.
I'm British so I also take offense to this (how very dare you!) but I'm assuming this was written from a US-centric point of view. The Elise and Exige may have been fairly common this side of the pond but I get the impression they're very rare outside of the UK.
Lotus's best sales year in the US was 2007, with about 3,000 sold across all models including the Elise. That year, the Corvette alone sold 33000 units.
