My sense, from the press and from personal acquaintances, is that a lot of early investors, and at least some later investors, were impact investors[1]. DBL Inv

My sense, from the press and from personal acquaintances, is that a lot of early investors, and at least some later investors, were impact investors[1]. DBL Investors is a notable example of an early Tesla impact investor. The successor, DBL Partners, is long on all three Musk companies.[2] This doesn't mean that Tesla didn't need to be an economic success. It does mean that economic success wasn't the only criterion, or as highly ranked as it is for a non-impact company with non-impact investors. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_investing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_investing [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBL_Partners https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBL_Partners