Since 1992, the domain Tesla.com has been owned by an engineer and Nikola Tesla fan named Stu Grossman, to the chagrin of Tesla Motors, which was forced to settle for Teslamotors.com as the broader domain sat mostly unused. But no longer: the company has obtained Tesla.com, which is now redirecting visitors to Teslamotors.com.
Tesla just quietly snagged the Tesla.com domain
As Bloomberg reports, the company has been interested in the change for some time. After the launch of the company’s Tesla Energy wing, CEO Elon Musk was asked if Tesla Motors might reflect its new business scope by changing its name to just Tesla. Musk said there were domain issues in the way, a problem now apparently solved.
It’s not clear, exactly, what caused the sudden change after so many years, or what Tesla may have had to pay to finally make the switch — although we do know even brief lapses in domain occupancy can lead to big paydays.
Correction, 7:26PM ET: An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to Nikola Tesla as Nikolai Tesla.
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