Apple missed out on the opportunity to snap up electric carmaker Tesla for just one-tenth of its current value, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has claimed in a tweet.
According to Musk, he got in touch with Apple during the "darkest days of the [Tesla] Model 3 program" to enquire about a possible buyout. However, Apple CEO Tim Cook supposedly "refused to take the meeting."
Apple Is Building Apple Car
Apple is currently reported to be working on its own Apple Car. This project has been underway since at least 2014. A recent report suggested that the Apple-branded vehicle could enter production by 2024 or 2025.
While details about the form the Apple Car will eventually take are sketchy---including whether or not Apple will manufacture a physical vehicle or just create an autonomous driving software platform that could be used by other manufacturers---such an initiative could potentially have a big impact on Tesla.
On Twitter, Elon Musk also questioned details of the battery technology Apple is said to be working on. In response to rumors that Apple will use an innovative "monocell" design for its automotive batteries, Musk wrote: "A monocell is electrochemically impossible, as max voltage is ~100X too low. Maybe [the reports] meant cells bonded together, like [Tesla’s current] structural battery pack?"
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). He refused to take the meeting.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 22, 2020
Apple Is the 'Tesla Graveyard'
Despite Musk having gone to Apple about a possible buyout, relations between the two companies haven't always been great. In the past, as The Guardian has noted, Musk has referred to Apple as a "Tesla graveyard" due to its alleged habit of hiring all the people Tesla has fired. "If you don't make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple. I’m not kidding," Musk said.
It's not clear from the latest Twitter thread exactly why Tim Cook would have turned down a meeting to discuss a Tesla acquisition---if that is indeed what happened. Apple frequently acquires companies with technology or, sometimes, employees that it wants, and then integrates them into Apple products or teams. This is how Steve Jobs returned to Apple in the late-1990s, following an Apple purchase of Jobs' company NeXT.
A Bargain for Apple?
At time of writing, Tesla has a market cap of around $607 billion, compared with Apple's $2.24 trillion. If Musk is accurate when he says Apple could have bought Tesla for one-tenth of its current market price, that still would have amounted to $60 billion.
To date, Apple's largest ever acquisition was buying Beats Electronics in 2014 for "just" $3 billion. Most of the companies Apple buys are well below that figure. This would have made a Tesla purchase for $60 billion an extremely uncharacteristic move for Apple.
Then again, given Tesla's current valuation, maybe Apple could have picked up a bargain in its quest to build the Apple Car.
Image Credit: David von Diemar/Unsplash CC
