SolarCity

SolarCity Corporation was a publicly traded company headquartered in Fremont, California that sold and installed solar energy generation systems as well as other related products and services to residential, commercial, and industrial customers. The company was founded on July 4, 2006, by Peter and Lyndon Rive, the cousins of SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Tesla acquired SolarCity in 2016, at a cost of approximately US$2.6 billion (equivalent to $3.2 billion in 2022) and reorganized its solar business into Tesla Energy.

SolarCity heavily focused on door-to-door sales of leased systems, where customers would pay no upfront costs, but agreed to purchase the power generated by those panels from the company for 20 years. The business model became the most popular in the US and made the company the largest residential solar installer, but it caused SolarCity to have over $1.5 billion in debt by the time of its acquisition in 2016 (equivalent to $1.8 billion in 2022).

Prior to its acquisition by Tesla, the two companies had a co-marketing relationship, announced in the 2006 first Tesla master plan. Tesla CEO Elon Musk served as the chairman of SolarCity, SolarCity offered free charging to Tesla Roadster owners at its charging stations, and SolarCity became one of the first installers of the Tesla Powerwall home energy storage battery.