How much lucky is Tesla and Elon Musk?

On December 23rd Elon replied to a tweet saying that he tried to sell Tesla to Apple for 60billion dollars during model 3 production hell.

After seeing that tweet, I wondered how lucky was Tesla, as Tim Cook refused to meet Elon.

We are now in a transition towards electric vehicles. Although the gas cars still dominate the roads, it's clear that the future of transportation is going all electric ⚡. All this excitement is because of one person and his company , Elon and his Tesla. Tesla is disrupting automotive industry by providing affordable EVs of all kind. But these never have been achieved that much easily.

Up to date, Tesla has gone near to bankruptcy many times. Although Elon managed to save it, he have tried to sell it  many times.

Here are the toughest times of Tesla, referred to as " HELL!"

Hell No: 1

Their first hell was roadster production. They were running out of time and even money they had. The cost of development of roadster was budgeted $25million. But it ended up costing nearly $140 million. They managed to get out of this situation by changing CEOs and by delivering 2450 roadster which made them survive.

Hell No: 2

America's one of the largest bank, Lehman brothers collapsed, sinking the world economy into the worst recession in 2008. Elon fought hard to save his companies including SpaceX as it's first three launches went failure. By November 2008, Tesla'sbfinancial situation had worsened and Tesla was on the brink of bankruptcy. Elon convinced board of directors to approve $40million in convertible debt financing. This helped Tesla get through it's darkest hours.

"Even then, we only narrowly survived...We actually closed the financing round on Christmas Eve 2008. It was the last hour of the last day that it was possible," Musk said.

Hell No: 3

Daimler gave additional support by buying 10% of the company for $50 million. Tesla was sanctioned with $465 million from US Department of Energy. Tesla got the better solution by going public in 2010.This laid foundation for Model S production. Even though model S was in high demand, there were many problems related to production, quality controls, concerns related to resale value and lacking of features like parking sensors. The customers who booked model S for $5000 were hesitated to wait. Delivery schedule crossed the dead line. They even shutdown production as they ran out of money. On May 8 2013, the posted it's first profit of $11million , as a public company ,after model S sales picked up.  Tesla managed to survive.

Hell No: 4

It again went nearly bankrupt in 2018. This time due to model 3 production. When they unveiled model 3 during first quarter of 2016, the pre orders peaked to 115,000 in 24 hrs . Their initial goal was to make 5000 model 3s a week. But in first three months of 2018, they made only 9800 of them.  Elon once said , "The model 3 ramp was extreme stress and pain for a longtime - from mid 2017 to mid 2019. Production and logistics hell", though he welcomed that hell during the model 3 unveil. He even slept on the floor of Fremont factory. Gladly they managed to pull over after a successful second half of 2019 by delivering 92,000 model 3 in 4th quarter. Elon made April fool by posting Tesla went bankrupt on April 1st. He is absolutely a child. 

During these hard times, Elon tried to sell Tesla for couple of times. 

1. He tried to sell Tesla to Larry Page during model S production issues time. A deal was written. Musk demanded Google buy Tesla for $6bn with a $5bn sum for factory expansions, with guarantees that Google wouldn’t simply break up the company, and that Musk could run it for eight years or until it produced its third-generation car.Google, meanwhile, had car aspirations of its own, buying up autonomous driving and robotics technology startups, and producing its pod-car prototype. Those self-driving cars could have been in the shape of a Model S, if Tesla’s sales hadn’t picked up in time.
2. He tried to sell Tesla to Apple during model 3 production hell. He tried to sell it for $60billion . But Tim Cook refused to meet him as they too had autonomous cars aspirations.

It looks like he and his company was so lucky, as even he tried to sell it,he couldn't. That made him the world's second richest person and Tesla as world's  most valuable automaker. But Elon had lost many during the hard times, especially during 2008. According to him 2008 was the worst year of his life as Tesla in the verge of bankruptcy; SpaceX's first three launches went wrong; he had divorce with his wife . The position of Tesla , SpaceX and himself is the ROI for his loss ,hard work and never give up policy! 

  

Proud to be an Elon Musk fan ❤️ #forevermuskian.