Tesla (TSLA-US) CEO Elon Musk said on Twitter on Tuesday (22nd) that in recent years he had considered selling Tesla to Apple (AAPL-US), but Apple CEO Tim Cook is not even interested in a meeting with him.
Musk mentioned in a tweet, “In the darkest days of the Model 3 project, I contacted Cook to discuss the possibility of Apple acquiring Tesla (at the time Tesla’s price was only 1/10 of the current price), but he Refused to attend the meeting.”
According to reports on Monday, Apple is developing lithium iron phosphate batteries (LiFePO4) for use in vehicles. Musk also expressed his views on the matter.
“If this is true, it is very strange. The medium-range vehicles manufactured by Tesla’s Shanghai plant have already used iron phosphate, and it is impossible for the single cell electrochemically because the maximum voltage is 100 times too low. Their It might mean to tie the batteries together, just like our structural battery pack?”
This is the first time Musk has admitted that he has thought about giving up control of Tesla. Tesla has not discussed the sale in any financial documents.
Musk publicly mentioned in 2018 that the production of Model 3 was in “hell mode”. At that time, Tesla was trying to solve the problem of mass production of Model 3. The rapid cash burn made him confess on Twitter that Tesla was only close to bankruptcy. There is one month left, but Tesla has never disclosed this financial detail in its quarterly earnings report.
Tesla and Apple have always competed for talent inside and outside Silicon Valley. Musk called Apple the cemetery of Tesla in 2015, and once joked, “If you are not successful at Tesla, then go to work for Apple.”
In July 2018, Apple hired Doug Field, the chief engineer of Tesla, to return to Apple, because Doug Field had served Apple earlier. At the time, Tesla mentioned that Apple is capable of poaching key Tesla employees. “Tesla is a difficult road. Our money is 100 times less than Apple. So of course they can pay more. We are extremely difficult. Confronting the big car manufacturers, these car manufacturers produced 100 times more cars last year, so this is of course very hard work.”
Apple has never acknowledged its plans to make cars, but Cook acknowledged that it is developing “autonomous systems” that can be used for other self-driving cars.
Apple and Tesla did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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