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Amid Reports On Apple Unveiling Its Electric Car By 2024, Elon Musk Says He Once Approached CEO Tim Cook With An Offer To Buy Tesla But Was Turned Down
Elon Musk launching a Beta version of Tesla’s V7.0 for the Model S in China in 2015 (VCG/VCG via Getty Images)
Tesla founder Elon Musk on Tuesday disclosed that he had once approached Apple CEO Time Cook to sound out the possibility of the Cupertino company acquiring his then struggling firm but Cook refused to take the meeting.
“During the darkest days of the Model 3 program, I reached out to Tim Cook to discuss the possibility of Apple acquiring Tesla (for 1/10 of our current value),” Musk said in a tweet on Tuesday. But the Apple CEO, he said, “refused to take the meeting.”
Musk revealed this while responding to a new report that Apple is making substantial progress in its plan to launch the production of electric cars by 2024.
Though Musk’s cryptic tweet did not clarify exactly when he made this approach, it was likely to be in 2017 when Tesla came within a month of bankruptcy due to what then looked like insurmountable manufacturing challenges. Tesla eventually worked to get past production challenges and delivery snags and began achieving profitability since 2018.
Codenamed as Project Titan, Apple began working on its own car project in 2014 but the progress has been uneven.
In August 2018, Apple appointed former Tesla Engineering V-P Doug Field to lead the team of Project Titan. Field oversaw the development of the Model 3 in Tesla.
According to a recent report in Reuters, Apple is currently pursuing a plan of building a personal vehicle for the mass market and is targeting 2024 to produce a passenger vehicle that could include its own breakthrough battery technology
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