Tesla pays off $465 million U.S. loan nine years early

Elon Musk may not be Tony Stark, but he's doing a credible impersonation of Lee Iacocca.

The co-founder of Tesla Motors set another milestone for his electric car company today by making a final $451.8 million payment on the $465 million loan from the U.S. government — nine years earlier than scheduled. The massive payment came courtesy of a stock offering last week that raised $1 billion for the California automaker, made possible after it revealed its first quarterly profit. The move makes Tesla the only automaker to have paid back its Department of Energy loan in full — yet another talking point for Musk's EV drive.

Now comes the hard part.