How Apple Rejected Elon Musk’s Tesla Pitch Years Ago

On December 22, 2020, Elon Musk – the CEO at Tesla, shared with the world through his Twitter account how Apple rejected to buy Tesla for a tenth of its current market value. By the time Elon Musk made that tweet, Tesla’s market value was over $600 Billion, which means Elon Musk wanted Apple to buy Tesla at about $60 Billion. However, Tim Cook – Apple’s CEO, didn’t give Elon Musk the chance to meet him and discuss the possible deal. 

Musk says that when Tesla had just released the Model 3, he proposed to meet Tim Cook to discuss the possible sale. During those days, Tesla was struggling due to high operation costs, especially in R&D. By then, the world had also not yet come to terms with the fact that Electric cars are the future, so even the sales were a tiny fraction of what they are today. 

                                    Elon Musk tweeting about Tim Cook refusing to do a meeting with him.

The fact that Tim Cook rejected the meeting means he didn’t see Tesla making it to where they are now. The proposed $60 billion value could have also been a reason because it would have been a big gamble for Apple to part with $60 billion on a company whose future was still uncertain. 

If Apple had bought Tesla, we would possibly be seeing a slower rate of innovation in the electric car industry. Yes, Tim Cook is a great CEO, but he is not as agile as Elon Musk when it comes to innovation. Tesla could have thrived under Apple, but it is hard to imagine that it would be doing better than it is now. 

Apple would have probably opted to change Tesla’s name and use their technology to make their cars. Another guess would be that Apple could have possibly emphasized software, and maybe Tesla cars would have much better software than they currently have. Both Tesla and Apple have some of the best Software engineers in Silicon Valley, but Apple is still miles ahead of Tesla when it comes to building software. 

It should also be noted that there have been lots of crossovers of software engineers moving from Apple to Tesla and vice versa. The most notable one was when Apple hired Tesla engineering manager Doug Field, which further fueled the Apple car rumors. 

At some point, Tim Cook admitted that Apple is working on a self-driving car project labeling it as one of the most complex projects they have ever done. 

Apple is one of those companies that usually succeeds when it comes to launching new products. Rumors now speculate around them releasing their own first car as early as 2024. I’m excited to see what will happen in the next few years!