According to their own blog [0], Opera implemented tabs in 2000. The earliest version of what became Firefox was released as "Phoenix" in 2002 [1]. Phoenix was renamed to Firebird in 2003 and again to Firefox in 2004 [2], in both cases due to name clashes.
[0] https://blogs.opera.com/news/2026/01/opera-one-r3-new-browse...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_early_version_history
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox#History