Elon Musk Reveals That He Pitched Apple To Acquire Tesla And Got Rejected

On Tuesday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk wrote on Twitter that he was considering selling his electric car company to Apple years ago, but Apple manager Tim Cook had no intention of taking the meeting.

Specifically, Musk tweeted on December 22:

“On the darkest days of the Model 3 program, I contacted Tim Cook to discuss whether Apple could get Tesla (at 1/10 of our current price). He declined to take the meeting. ”

Elon’s Statements

On Tuesday, Musk also mentioned lithium iron phosphate batteries that Apple reportedly improved on car use, Reuters reported on Monday.

“It’s amazing, if true,” Musk wrote. “Tesla is already using iron-phosphate in medium-sized cars made at our Shanghai factory. – Monocell is not electrically possible, as ~ 100X maximum power is very low. Maybe they were saying that cells were assembled together, like our building bucket?”

It was an unusual confession from a mercurial manager that he once considered stopping controlling the company he helped to build and take it to a market value in excess of the top nine car manufacturers included. Tesla did not discuss sales in any financial filing.

In 2018, Musk publicly declared that the automotive business was “hell,” and that he was lying in a factory trying to solve the company’s problems as it tried to start mass-producing Model 3 electric sedans.

And earlier he said, in a tweet, that Tesla had once received “almost a month” since the collapse during the Model 3 ramp-up – details the company did not disclose in its three-quarter files.

Tesla and Apple are constantly competing for more and more talent in Silicon Valley. In 2015, Musk called Apple the Tesla cemetery. “If you don’t succeed in Tesla you will work for Apple,” he said.

In July 2018, Apple hired Tesla engineering manager Doug Field – who had previously worked for Apple – to return to the company, following a host of other employees.

At the time, Tesla told CNBC in a statement about Apple’s ability to recruit key employees in its ranks: “Tesla is a tough way. We have a hundred times more money than Apple, so they can pay more. We are in a very difficult battle against the fixed car companies that make 100 times more cars than we did last year, so this is a very difficult task. ”

Apple has never approved car building plans, but Cook has acknowledged that it is working on “private systems” that can be used on self-driving cars or for other purposes.

Apple and Tesla did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Synopsis

Tesla CEO Elon Musk wrote on Twitter on Tuesday, “During the darkest days of the Model 3 program, I contacted Tim Cook to discuss whether Apple could buy Tesla (at 1/10 of our current price). He declined to take the meeting. ”

Musk and Tesla have not discussed considering selling the company in any financial filings.

The news comes a day after Reuters reported that Apple has once again decided to enter the automotive industry, a rumor that has been circulating since 2015.