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At an event for its 200 most important managers, the German carmaker Volkswagen presented a special surprise guest: Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla.
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At Volkswagen, the largest car maker in Europe, Tesla was ignored or laughed off for a long time. When VW later also started to focus more on electric mobility, the group tried to market ‘Tesla killers’ with the electric Audi e-tron and the VW ID.3, but so far without convincing success.
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Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess, who aspires to a leading role in electric cars, broke the trend by having Tesla founder Elon Musk speak as a special guest at a conference for 200 executives. Diess described Musk as “their strongest competitor.” Inviting Musk was also a clear statement that the group “needs a different mindset to tackle the new competitors.”
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Musk talked about VW’s switch to electric cars, his management style and production problems in a video call. He also indicated that he believes that Volkswagen will succeed in its turn towards electric cars.
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Successor
While traditional VW bosses have always reacted coolly to Tesla and Musk, there has been a special chemistry between Diess and Musk for years. This year it leaked that the then BMW manager Diess in 2015 almost became CEO of Tesla was, at a time when Musk wanted to pass the torch.
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They do not imply that they get on well with each other. For example, in September Musk made a test drive with Volkswagen’s first electric model, the ID.3 – at a small airport near Hanover. Musk supported the Austrian previously on Twitter when he came under fire in the diesel scandal.
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