Tesla CEO Elon Musk says during the darkest days of the Model 3 program he once considered selling the electric car company to Apple but CEO Tim cook refused to take the meeting.
In a tweet Tuesday, Musk said he reached out to Apple CEO Tim Cook “to discuss the possibility of Apple acquiring Tesla (for one-tenth of our current value). He refused to take the meeting.”
During the darkest days of the Model 3 program, I reached out to Tim Cook to discuss the possibility of Apple acquiring Tesla (for 1/10 of our current value). He refused to take the meeting.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 22, 2020
Tesla’s market value is $616 billion, as of the close of trading Tuesday. One-tenth of that is $61.6 billion.
Apparently, Model 3 was Tesla’s first electronic car designed for the mass market. Limited production of the Model 3 began in mid-2017, with the first production vehicle rolling off the assembly line on July 7, 2017.
As recently as 2018, Tesla was struggling to meet its vehicle production goals and turn a profit. But their fortunes took a wild turn in the last two quarters of 2018, as of March 2020, the Tesla Model 3 is the world’s best-selling electric car in history, with more than 500,000 units delivered.
The Model 3 was the world’s top-selling plug-in electric car in 2018 and 2019, and also the best-selling plug-in car in the United States. Model 3 was also the top-selling plug-in car in Europe in 2019.
Not to mention but Tesla is reaching the skies since that dark phase. Their shares soared 665% this year alone, making it the world’s most valuable automaker and among the top 10 biggest US companies in the S&P 500 index, which Tesla entered on Monday.
Musk wrote this tweet in response to the reports suggesting that Apple is working on developing its own electric cars from 2025.
Apple still reputedly planning to build an iCar.
The apparent secret sauce:
They watched the livestream of Tesla’s battery day;
They also took notes;
Then those notes were exclusively leaked to Reuters.So they could hire, hoping to begin production by
[checks notes]
2025. pic.twitter.com/VQubNAl5Ds
— Brett Winton (@wintonARK) December 21, 2020
