Seth Weintraub reports for 9to5Mac, “In a Bloomberg interview , Tesla CEO Elon Musk said of a possible acquisition by anyone:”
Bloomberg: Elon, yesterday your shareholders got a little bit richer on these reports that you had met with the acquisition team at Apple. Is there any truth to a possible partnership, merger with Apple?
Musk: Well of course it’s – if – if – if one or more companies had approached us last year about such things, there’s no way we could really comment on that.
Bloomberg: Well did you have a conversation with Apple?
Musk: We had conversations with Apple. I can’t comment on whether those revolved around any kind of acquisition.
Bloomberg: If anything, Elon, if Apple were to come to you and say, you know what? We want to get in the car business. We actually want to perhaps start making cars. What would you tell them, given your own experience?
Musk: What would I tell Apple if they said they wanted to make cars?
Bloomberg: Yeah.
Musk: I’d probably tell them that I think it’s a great idea.
Weintraub writes, “So Tesla wasn’t talking acquisition (which was pretty obvious if you follow the two companies) but he could have been shopping around the Lithium battery Gigafactory…”
Read more in the full article here.
Related articles:
Why the heck would Apple business development execs meet with Tesla Motors? – February 19, 2014
Apple-Tesla talks fuel hopes of advanced battery tech, deeper iOS in the Car integration – February 18, 2014
Apple acquisitions chief met with Tesla CEO Elon Musk – February 16, 2014
Tesla hires Apple VP of Mac Hardware Engineering Doug Field to lead development of new vehicles – October 24, 2013
Makes sense, batteries is an area of mutual interest and one where collaboration of any kind wouldn’t impinge on either’s business as they’re in different product areas (as opposed to say Apple setting up a battery factory with Samsung), and also wouldn’t rule out anything else in the future.
So Musk said he couldn’t comment on whether the conversations with Apple revolved around an acquisition and he said he thought Apple getting into the car business was a great idea and Mr. Weintraub interprets that to confirm that Apple is definitely not talking to Tesla about acquiring them. How does that logic work?
Yep thought the same, wondered if the full article made any more sense but lost the will to check, if these were deemed Musks best most insightful answers. Creates a new high in non committal.
Apple is dead money. Get out while you still can.
Thoughtful piece, well done.
My wife and I currently hold a boatload of AAPL (many, many thousands of shares) . . . and as hard as it is to say, you are absolutely correct, YM. Between and among hedge fund managers, biased “analysts,” corporate raiders, the lack of new product releases from Cupertino, increasing mobile device competition here and abroad, and more factors too numerous to mention, AAPL is dead money crawling. We continue to hold the stock for its dividend alone. Without it, we would have gone PCLN, GOOG, or even AMZN many months ago.
Without question, Apple will continue to make solid profits worldwide in coming years, much like MSFT, but it will NEVER AGAIN be an unbridled growth stock. NEVER, for that ship has sailed since Steve’s death.
Bullshit….
you give bullshit a bad name associating it with this stench
I guess you’re looking for sympathy, or maybe just trying to encourage others to sell their shares in Apple. Instead I’m going to give you some advice: sell your Apple shares, and all your other stocks that you think are going nowhere. Any knowledgeable investment adviser will tell you the exact same thing: find and purge the worst stocks in your portfolio, buy better stocks, and you will start making more money immediately. The sooner you do it, the quicker you can reap the benefits of owning a better portfolio. Add SPY or VTI if you want a solid stocks that you don’t need to think about.
The only reason for you to stick with AAPL is if you think it will pay off better than other options available.
What renders your credibility useless is the use of the word ” NEVER” typed in caps several times!
That js a clear indication of you either having a crystal ball… Or a chip on your shoulder .
I go for the latter !
Two more pieces of advice for you
Msft pays higher dividend yield .. Why arent u there.
It will take u less time to sell all your apple and buy amzn, pcln, goog, msft. than it took u to write your BS .
Wouldn’t be too sure that Amazon and Google will be endlessly either.
In my opinion, the talks are about acquiring Tesla in order to acquire not only a super innovative car company and battery tech but most importantly, to acquire Elon Musk as Apple CEO.
You heard it here first.
No, I heard it here again.
Elon Musk would be one heck of an acquisition. Apple should buy Tesla only if Musk came along as Apple CEO
Tesla has a current market cap of $26 billion, and shareholders would expect a premium for their shares. Not even Musk is worth that. This speculation belongs in the category of the “Apple should buy Adobe … Sony … Disney … GM” nonsense.
Apple should (and I expect will) stick with what they’re good at. Unless what they’re after is the “Big Ass Tablet” Tesla uses as the car’s control center.
The same strategy worked wonders before when
Apple bought Next back in the late 90’s….
It would be really great if Apple bought SpaceX..