Tesla finally owns Tesla.com

Elon Musk is one of the most powerful names in business, but it took his company Tesla over a decade to finally nab its namesake URL this week. 

Silicon Valley engineer and Nikola Tesla super fan (such people apparently exist) Stu Grossman bought up the Tesla domain back in 1992 with the hopes of making a fan site for the noted mechanical engineer, according to Bloomberg.

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While Grossman's ode to Tesla never came to fruition, the site sat empty — "parked by owner," in ironic internet speak — used only as Grossman's email domain. Meanwhile, poor old Musk had to settle for the clunkier teslamotors.com.

Grossman, however, remained stubborn on holding on to the domain. 

In 2005, a Delaware-based manufacturer Tesla Industries sued Grossman in an attempt to grab the domain. 

But Grossman shaded the lesser-known Tesla, according to a filing, saying through a lawyer that he had "never heard of Complainant" and that he registered the domain "at a time when the World Wide Web, and websites themselves, did not exist."

Grossman ended up the victor in that case, in which he made his stance clear: "all, including [Tesla Industries], have been informed that Respondent is not interested in selling the domain name."

But it seems Grossman finally relented: as of Feb. 19, the domain was in the hands of the auto giant. Elon Musk, the company's CEO, appeared to be grateful. 

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A Tesla spokesperson did not immediately respond to Mashable's request for comment about how the company acquired the URL. But a tweet from Musk suggests Grossman handed it over, and the lawyer who represented Grossman in that 2005 case told Bloomberg that he "would surmise this was a voluntary agreement."

Maybe Grossman finally thought he found a worthy owner of his beloved URL in Musk, who also has an affinity for the famed Serbian-American inventor. 

Or more likely, he got a nice incentive from Musk.

And the acquisition is a great branding move for Musk, who's proved that his business interests are far bigger than teslamotors.com would suggest.

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