Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook refused to take a meeting years ago to discuss acquiring Tesla Inc., Elon Musk said on Tuesday.
Tesla CEO Musk said in a tweet that he reached out to Apple during the ‘darkest days’ of the development of his company’s Model 3 to talk about a possible deal. Musk said he planned to discuss the possibility of selling Tesla to Apple for one-tenth of its current value, indicating a valuation of about $60 billion.
In 2017, Tesla burned cash as it ramped up output of its mass-market Model 3 electric vehicle. Musk told employees 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 tweeted about sleeping on the roof of a factory as he tried to resolve bottlenecks.
That happened around the same time Apple decided to shift from the development of a full-fledged Tesla competitor to an underlying self-driving car system. In recent years, Apple has hired a number of ex-Tesla executives who specialize in the drive train, car interior, and self-driving technology. It has also acquired companies that specialize in self-driving car development, indicating that the company is once again considering entering the market.