In the year 2008, Tesla was on the verge of bankruptcy and Elon Musk relied on money borrowed from his friends for his living expenses. He got divorced the same year and everybody thought it was the end of Elon Musk's dreams. Then came Deepak Ahuja, an executive from Ford, as the first CFO at Tesla and didn't just save the ship from drowning but took it even further. Before we get to the point, here is a little history of what all went wrong that led to the near bankruptcy of Tesla.

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The Story beings here:

The year 2008: Elon Musk introduced the world to the latest Tesla Roadster to which Jeremy Clarkson reviewed the roadster as a barely-running science experiment that couldn't survive a full day at the Top Gear track. Did Elon Musk agree then? No.

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The year 2016: Elon Musk admits to shareholders that the Tesla Roadster was a disaster.

The year 2014: Elon said, “2008 was the worst year of my life”. How?

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This is how.

The year 2008: 

Headlines like “The third unsuccessful attempt for private spaceflight-firm SpaceX” clouded various media platforms. SpaceX was running out of cash.

The remaining money went into keeping Tesla alive. Was no other investor interested to invest into electric car company? Do you think that seems logical? Why did only Elon Musk invest?

Tesla was incorporated in July 2003 which was founded by a tiny band of obsessive Silicon Valley engineers, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Elon joined as Chairman of the Board in February 2004, investing in their Series A. He participated in their Series A (2004), Series B (2005), Series C (2006), Series D (2007), and Series E (2008).

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Elon then removed Martin Eberhard as CEO and took control of the company, remaining the sole investor. 

He was then the sole investor in their $40M Series E round in mid-2008, during the financial crisis, and arranged a $40M bridge loan in late 2008.

During all this, Elon Musk got divorced after being in a relationship with his first wife, Canadian author Justine Wilson from 2000 to 2008. He was literally borrowing cash from friends to pay for his living expenses. Well, today, he's the 87th richest person in the world, according to Forbes.

Enter Deepak Ahuja, a man who spent eight years as an executive at Ford, the last successful American car startup which was founded 111 years ago, joined as Tesla's First CFO.

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At Ford, he was taking care of almost all aspects of the business, including manufacturing, sales, advertising, treasury, and purchasing.

By the time Deepak left in 2015, Tesla was a very different company: It had gone public, opened its factory in Fremont, and started selling the Model S and Model X. Shares had gained roughly 975 percent under Ahuja's watch.

He then retired in 2015 but later joined Tesla again in the same position which he had retired from. 

The education was what put him on the map.

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He graduated in 1985 with a degree in Ceramic Engineering at the Institute of Technology of Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in India and later completed his post graduation in Materials Engineering from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois and did his MBA from the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Now he lives in Silicon Valley, near Tesla's office with his wife and two daughters.