It was recently confirmed that the domain name Tesla.com has been sold to Tesla Motors, after being owned by a Mr. Stuart Grossman of California for a very long period of time. In the past, Mr. Grossman has defended the name in a UDRP (Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy) against Tesla Industries, but as of today, the domain name redirects to Tesla Motors’ official website.
Interview with Mr. Grossman, and here is what he said:
Basically, I realized that I would never have the time to use the domain in a productive manner. Between family, work and other obligations, there just isn’t enough of me left over to devote any time to a web site.
In addition, between the UDRP, and the frequent (but not very serious) requests to buy, borrow or use the name it was becoming a burden. Despite being insulated by my registrars privacy scheme, people still tracked me down, and called my home, sent letters, and in one case even dropped by for a visit.
In another instance, a bunch of spam went out with tesla.com as the (faked) originating address. I think it contained a virus or a link to something bad. That resulted in a bunch of hate mail and a couple of very nasty phone calls to my residence.
As expected, Stuart was unable to share a price with us due to a non-disclosure agreement. Coincidentally, in a recent interview with us, Angel Investor @jason calacanis (friend of Tesla CEO Elon Musk) shared a piece of advice about Tesla.com:
If the person with Tesla.com decides they want to buy a nice condo or house, sure, it’s a great idea [for Tesla Motors] to spend $500k or $1m buying that name.
Perhaps Jason knew something we didn’t?