Elon Musk shared an interesting story on Twitter, saying that he offered Tim Cook and Apple to buy Tesla when it faced production issues.
2020 has definitely been Elon Musk’s year, thanks to Tesla’s dramatic rise. It was not long ago when Tesla became the most valuable carmaker, with a valuation of more than $500 billion. We also saw Elon Musk become the second-richest human globally behind Jeff Bezos, with a net worth of more than $120 billion.
However, things weren’t always that easy for the outspoken CEO — things would’ve been vastly different if Apple CEO Tim Cook had accepted a certain meeting with Elon.
In a recent interview, Elon revealed that when Tesla faced tough times during the Model 3 launch, he wanted to sell Tesla to Apple with the hope of pulling the company out of dark waters. However, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook didn’t even want a meeting.
Elon shared the experience with the world via his Twitter account (duh).
“I (Elon) reached out to Apple to discuss the possibility of them acquiring Tesla for 1/10th of Tesla’s current value. However, Tim refused to meet me.”
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
Elon didn’t reveal the exact time when this happened, but we suspect it took place between 2017 and 2019. According to Musk, Tesla was weeks away from going bankrupt since it redirected all resources towards the Model 3 production.
Nonetheless, Tesla somehow survived the tough times, and just years later, it became one of the most valuable companies globally. Then the carmaker launched the Model Y, and it is currently working on the Cybertruck project, which was already booked over 250,000 times in under seven days of unveiling.
But would Tesla be so successful if Apple had bought it back then? It is a question that, sadly, no one can answer. Moreover, Tim Cook must be regretting turning down the opportunity. And there might be some truth to the rumors that Apple is reportedly working on producing its first fully-electric and autonomous car by 2024.
Fully electric and autonomous sure sounds a lot like Tesla.
