> there's nothing to stop a clever company from competing with them I wish I could remember where I read/saw it, but Musk stated that the goal of Tesla was to

> there's nothing to stop a clever company from competing with them I wish I could remember where I read/saw it, but Musk stated that the goal of Tesla was to make the market shift to EVs, not generate profit. My memory is a bit hazy but I'm pretty sure he even said that after that goal was reached, he didn't care what happened to Tesla. With that in mind, the motivation for opening up patents seems pretty straightforward.