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[이데일리 김보겸 기자] Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk said in the past attempts to sell Tesla to Apple, but Apple CEO Tim Cook has rejected it. The time when he tried to sell Tesla was in the middle of 2017, and it is estimated that the price to sell Tesla was about 60 billion dollars (about 66 trillion won).
Musk posted on Twitter on the 22nd (local time): “In the darkest days of the Model 3 program, I contacted Tim Cook to discuss the possibility of Apple’s acquisition of Tesla (at a tenth of its current value).” “He refused to meet,” he wrote.
He posted the same on Twitter after reports that Apple will produce self-driving vehicles with self-designed electric vehicle batteries by 2024. Musk responded to a tweet posted by Brett Winton of investment research firm Arc Invest about Apple’s entry into electric vehicles, saying, “It’s weird if it’s true,” and then posted the tweet. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) said, “Musk made this public by questioning whether Apple is serious about releasing its own electric car.”
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It wasn’t clear when they tried to sell Tesla to Apple. However, the Financial Times said that the’dark period’ he mentioned is likely to be mid-2017. In November, Musk described it as “production and logistics hell”, saying, “Model 3 was extremely stress and pain from mid-2017 to mid-2019.” Tesla’s funding crisis began in 2017 when the Model 3 was released and continued until mid-2019. Musk also referred to the auto business as “manufacturing hell” in 2018, and in August of the same year, he posted a Tesla delisting bill on Twitter and was investigated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). When they tried to delist, Tesla’s advisors tried to get funding from several places, including Volkswagen.
Currently, Tesla’s market capitalization is over 600 billion dollars (about 660 trillion won). According to Musk’s words, it seems that he was trying to sell Tesla to Apple for about $60 billion.
The media, including WSJ, said they requested comments on Musk’s Twitter post from Apple, but they did not receive an immediate response.
The partnership between Apple and Tesla was a topic often mentioned in Silicon Valley. The 2015 Apple Shareholders’ Meeting is symbolic. During the meeting, one investor said to CEO Tim Cook, “I honestly want to see you buy Tesla,” and received applause from others.
As Apple’s interest in automobiles has increased, there has also been a quarrel with Tesla. In 2015, Musk complained that Apple was pulling out technicians as bait for a 60% wage increase. “Apple employs the people we fired. We always jokingly call Apple the’Tesla Grave.’ I am not kidding.”
If Apple, with enormous resources, brand power, and logistics power, enters the electric vehicle industry, competition with Tesla, the leader, is expected to be inevitable. The Financial Times reported, “If Apple enters the electric car market, Tesla could become’the biggest losers’.”