Elon Musk recently tweeted that he tried to sell Tesla to Apple in the past, confirming several rumours that have been circulating for years.
Musk states that he even dropped Tesla’s valuation down to “1/10th” of its current value since the company was in the “darkest days” of the Model 3 production line. However, Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, didn’t take his meeting.
Strange, if true.
– Tesla already uses iron-phosphate for medium range cars made in our Shanghai factory.
– A monocell is electrochemically impossible, as max voltage is ~100X too low. Maybe they meant cells bonded together, like our structural battery pack?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 22, 2020
Musk tweeted this observation after the news broke that Apple is reportedly still working on an electric car. Alongside his tale of trying to sell his company to Apple, he said Telsa already uses iron-phosphate batteries at its Shanghai factory and that “monocell” battery technology doesn’t make sense since it offers fewer than 100x current battery technology’s voltage.
It should be noted that back in 2018, Tesla was in a very different place as it suffered repeated setbacks related to the production of the Model 3. At one point, Musk said Tesla even had a single-digit number of weeks left unless it could solve these problems, according to The Verge.
Overall, there’s no way to know if what Musk claims happened is true, but if the company was in a tight spot, the prospect of Tesla selling to Apple was likely at least on the table.
Source: Elon Musk