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Elon asked Google to buy Tesla for 6bil in 2013

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Interesting, but probably needs fact check. Was factory really shut? Seems to me tesla was still operating on backlog in early 2013? All the owners I talked to were ecstatic. Yes, nits were there, but so was tesla grin. I don't doubt some of this, but there seems to be some exaggeration too.
 
Interesting, but probably needs fact check. Was factory really shut? Seems to me tesla was still operating on backlog in early 2013? All the owners I talked to were ecstatic. Yes, nits were there, but so was tesla grin. I don't doubt some of this, but there seems to be some exaggeration too.
Agreed. I am skeptical that article has its "facts" right.
Wow, those stories can't even roughly agree on what the mythical asking price was. There is quite a bit of difference between 6 and 11 billion.
 
This article is full of crap. I received my car in 2012, and there was never a time in 2013 when demand was bad. There has always been a significant wait time for the car. The visor issue was that it didn't have a light and was too small. There were a few minor problems with the door handles, sunroof, etc., but nothing that prevented owners from convincing others to get the car.

Word of mouth was what sold the early cars. There's no way that Elon would have said that it sucked. The demographics of where the early cars were being sold prove that fact.
 
discussion here: Elon asked Google to buy Tesla for 6bil in 2013

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This article is full of crap. I received my car in 2012, and there was never a time in 2013 when demand was bad.

oh yes there was, this fictitious article in Feb 2013 'Stalled Out on Tesla’s Electric Highway' Log In - The New York Times resulted in thousands of cancellations... it made such sensations about how the author faked a bunch of things and ran out of juice intentionally for media headlines that it resulted in his name being added to the urban dictionary for 'brodering' Urban Dictionary: Broder
 
oh yes there was, this fictitious article in Feb 2013 'Stalled Out on Tesla’s Electric Highway' Log In - The New York Times resulted in thousands of cancellations... it made such sensations about how the author faked a bunch of things and ran out of juice intentionally for media headlines that it resulted in his name being added to the urban dictionary for 'brodering' Urban Dictionary: Broder

Assuming article is correct, it's pretty ridiculous if Broder was the cause. But more because why would that even affect reservation holders? The car wasn't defective or dangerous; a driver just ostensibly ran out of power. Huh? That's basically got nothing to do with anything. If it's true I guess people aren't too smart - including Tesla buyers unfortunately! :D
 
Someone is trying to sell books.

NYTimes published false story re Model S in early February for writer's own motives, now author who works for Bloomberg writes false statements about why Tesla did feel some pressure in Feb/March 2013 (the NYTimes story was the reason, not dissatisfaction of early owners).

There simply was no better view into owner satisfaction from launch onwards than here at TMC. The car was loved. Yes some flaws but the car was loved, as anyone can see in posts from the time (and several Model S owners voluntarily giving up a weekend to disprove NYTimes article by driving the same route)

I would be shocked if Elon statement wasn't taken out of context (i.e. something like- NYTimes piece gives false perception car sucks, or maybe it's a quote from 2007 on unfinished Roadster).

Its quite possible Elon and Page had talked about a buyout... but the rest of this, just the result of greater interest in selling a book than facts.
 
Assuming article is correct, it's pretty ridiculous if Broder was the cause. But more because why would that even affect reservation holders? The car wasn't defective or dangerous; a driver just ostensibly ran out of power. Huh? That's basically got nothing to do with anything. If it's true I guess people aren't too smart - including Tesla buyers unfortunately! :D

The rest of the media jumped all over this. There may well have been an issue about reduced incoming orders more than a cancellation issue. It was probably as much the fear Tesla might not survive all these negative articles implied than the idea that the car couldn't do long distance travel that deterred would be buyers.
 
This book excerpt really doesn't sound right. It would be nice to see a more detailed timeline - hopefully the book has one. But yeah, paying off a $450M loan so soon after a possible bankruptcy doesn't smell right. I can believe that Elon had an all hands sales focus after the NY Times Broder article - at the time Elon mentioned it did have an effect on orders. I will also say that I was more than a little surprised how quickly I got my car during that time period.

I ordered my car Thanksgiving weekend 2012 (late November 2012), and received it early March 2013. So less than 3 1/2 months, including a downtime period of Christmas. So there may very well have been a soft spot for orders around then. HOWEVER, I do not ever remember the factory being shutdown (except maybe for a week long Christmas break?), and certainly their sales numbers indicate that factory production was increasing all through late 2012 and through 2013.

So ... I'm very skeptical. Elon may very well have been talking to Google just as a backup plan. He IS very prudent that way - he had a secret backup plan for SpaceX after they blew up their first few rockets, and indeed he did use his SpaceX backup plan, so it wouldn't surprise me that Elon worked on a secret backup plan for Tesla.

But I think the article emphasis is wrong and over sensationalized. I don't think Tesla ever needed to seriously considering selling to Google. It was just there in case they didn't execute.

A final counter-counter point. In late 2012, Tesla stock was in the doldrums at $33 a share. The stock market response to the Model S sales and reception caught EVERYONE by surprise. NO ONE was predicting such a stratospheric rise to $100/share in such a short period of time. If Tesla needed to be saved, that's what did it - the public stock market. It allowed Elon to float a $1B debt offering (which occurred like 2 weeks after the stock price hit $100 if I remember correctly, an incredibly fast response).
 
This article disturbs me, because as customers, we had no idea that we may have been buying a product from a company that was on the verge of bankruptcy. What was Tesla telling investors at the time? Surely there would have been a clear indication of financial trouble in the quarterlies and Tesla's forward looking statements. The other aspect of the Yahoo article that bothers me is the assertion that company executives hid the seriousness of the situation from their own CEO. How is it possible that Musk didn't know how bad things were until it was almost too late? That doesn't speak highly of his involvement with the company.
 
This article disturbs me, because as customers, we had no idea that we may have been buying a product from a company that was on the verge of bankruptcy. What was Tesla telling investors at the time? Surely there would have been a clear indication of financial trouble in the quarterlies and Tesla's forward looking statements. The other aspect of the Yahoo article that bothers me is the assertion that company executives hid the seriousness of the situation from their own CEO. How is it possible that Musk didn't know how bad things were until it was almost too late? That doesn't speak highly of his involvement with the company.

I think the author is just trying to cash in on the name and company. His tweets are like spam promoting the book with links to the amazon buy page:

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