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.”
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.