If you visited Tesla's Fremont factory in 2013, the former NUMMI plant jointly opened by Toyota and GM in the '80s, you'd have seen a pretty dire place. Much of the massive facility lay completely empty and manufacturing was suspended due to slow demand for the cars. The company itself was in a bad place.
Now, according to new details from Bloomberg's Ashlee Vance in his upcoming book "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future," we're learning just how close it came to acquisition.
According to Vance, Musk began taking bold moves to save the company. He started by pulling members from every division in the company and turning them into salespeople. They were tasked with calling people who had placed Model S reservations, closing sales and collecting payments.
In March, however, Musk made an even more fascinating move: he called Google CEO Larry Page. According to Vance, Musk wanted $6 billion for Tesla, with a promise for another $5 billion in capital to keep the company growing. (Tesla is currently valued at roughly to $25 billion.) Musk also wanted guarantees for his own continued involvement and for the continued existence of Tesla as a unified carcompany.
Musk and Page verbally agreed to the deal and the formalities began. However, soon after, things quickly turned around. Sales started picking up, Tesla started turning a profit, and the deal was off.
With talk of an Apple car and Google's own extensive work on the self-driving front, it's utterly fascinating to think what Tesla would look like today under a new corporate parentage. However, Tesla remains independent and, it must be said, quite successful -- if you forgive the constant Model X andModel 3 delays, at least.
Source: cnet.com
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