Apple Inc chief executive officer Tim Cook refused to take a meeting years ago to discuss acquiring Tesla Inc, Tesla chief executive Elon Musk said on Tuesday.
Musk wrote on Twitter that he had reached out to Apple during the “darkest days” of development of his company’s Model 3 to talk about a possible deal.
He planned to discuss the possibility of selling Tesla to Apple for one-10th of its current value, indicating a valuation of about US$60 billion, Musk said.
Photo: Reuters
In 2017, Tesla burned cash as it ramped up output of its mass-market Model 3 electric vehicle.
Musk told employees then at the company’s Fremont, California, plant that it faced a period of “production hell” for six months or longer.
Weeks after making that statement, he wrote on Twitter about sleeping on the roof of the factory as he tried to resolve bottlenecks.
That happened around the same time that Apple decided to shift from development of a full-fledged Tesla competitor to an underlying self-driving vehicle system.
In the past few years, Apple has hired a number of former Tesla executives who specialize in drivetrain, vehicle interior and self-driving technology. It has also acquired companies that specialize in self-driving vehicle development, indicating that the company is once again considering entering the market.
An Apple spokesman declined to comment on Musk’s remarks, while Tesla did not reply to a request for a comment on the timing of the offer Musk described.
Shares of Apple and Tesla have surged since the beginning of 2017. Tesla has gained more — roughly 1,400 percent — but is still worth less than one-third of Apple’s market capitalization.
This week, Apple’s stock has climbed, while Tesla slipped on a Reuters report that Apple is aiming to produce a driverless vehicle in 2024.
Bloomberg News earlier this month reported that Apple shifted leadership of its auto project to John Giannandrea from former top engineer Bob Mansfield, indicating its self-driving technology and artificial intelligence focus.
Musk’s comment about Apple came a day after Tesla joined Apple in the benchmark S&P 500 Index, capping a year in which its stock has surged.
Investors have bid up the shares as the company has posted five consecutive quarters of profit.
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