“One of the things I love about New York City is I’ve forged friendships with people from different backgrounds. My closest friend at Stern is a premier scholar in machine learning from India whose father was an officer in the Indian army. Two other close friends are from Brazil and El Salvador,” Scott Galloway writes for MarketWatch. “Something all three have given me is an appreciation for one of the pillars of our success as a nation: the rule of law. In these three countries there is a moving part called corruption that can hit you like an invisible bus after years of hard work.”
“When Elon Musk committed blatant market manipulation (‘funding secured’) for the sole purpose of scratching his id, he waved his middle finger in the face of our system,” Galloway writes. “The excuses we make for ‘innovators’ are unhealthy and un-American… But the U.S., more than a nation innovators, is a nation of laws. We benefit, every day, from the notion ‘justice is blind.’ The Edison of our generation (and he is a genius) stuck his chin out and dared us to hit him. The SEC found its voice and complied.”
“Our Edison will be, at a minimum, banned from being officer or director of a public company. Narcissism, a weak board, lack of impulse control, idolatry of innovators, and the SEC finding its voice will thrust Tesla into the arms of another, as the stock will decline (further), and the firm, which has real assets, will be acquired,” Galloway writes. “Apple or Google are the most likely suitors, as the car is a platform of sorts and one can see Apple employing their high-margin luxury brand, vertical distribution, and artisan strategy on Tesla.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: If it’s one or the other, it’s the innovator or the copier thief; good or evil; Apple or Alphabet Inc. Good luck, Tesla, because Apple has shown very little appetite for massive acquisitions.
If Apple NeXT’d Tesla, would be a huge win for the company, assuming Elon had any interest in advancing Apple tech. The fear would be he would run it more into the ground than ‘deep pipeline” Cook to take its money to fund Tesla/SpaceX stuff he is into.
BMW is going to buyout Tesla
Keep dreaming. Nobody is going to buy out Tesla. Not Apple, not Google, not BMW. It’s a good chuckle reading all these comments. Oh how all the other companies eventually will just crush them in competition or own them because of Tesla’s incompetence – is telling. You’re all revealing that you actually understand that Tesla has something special, unique, different….and worth having – that nobody else today currently has.
If Tesla manages to post even a dollar of profitability this quarter or next, no other company on the planet is going to have a chance to buy them as Tesla will no longer have any real trouble with capital markets.
Tesla is founded and run by a dreamer Engineer how is not a business person.
All the company has done is create very expensive cars out of the reach of most mere mortals.
I commend Elon Musk for what he has done, but in relation to the big car companies, Tesla is not competitive.
Hyundai has just launched their electric Kona that gets 450 km real world range starting at around $30 k.
Tbis is reality.
I tend to agree, considering I just read a road test of the Jaguar iPace that saw it as in many wys as good or better than the Model S all created in 4 years I fear Tesla may have already had its best days.
It seems at least one ‘person’ still believes Musk would be a positive at Apple. Not that the evil dead are known for having a good record on such matters.
The use of “NeXT’d” as a verb is a misunderstanding of what happend with Apple and NeXT. Apple wasn’t the initiator, NeXT was. Jobs made a pitch to Apple to purchase them because the NeXT OS could solve Apple’s OS woes. Apple was running out of cash so they opened the gates and happily rolled in the iTrojan Horse.
So, Apple didn’t purchase a failing NeXT (as it would be doing with Tesla); rather NeXT brilliantly maneuvered itself to be subsumed by Apple for the purpose of saving Apple (and getting handsomely paid for it in the process).
Why would anyone buy Tesla? What unique IP do they own? Aside from a certain amount of fame I don’t see what is valuable about Tesla. They are burning cash at a furious rate. Left to their own devices they might go bankrupt in the next year or two.
I think if Amazon were to buy Tesla, Amazon’s share price would rocket to the moon before it even turned a profit. Everything Jeff Bezos does is seen by Wall Street as perfect. Jeff Bezos would be able to convince investors it was a wonderful thing. He’s exactly like Elon Musk where everything he touches turns into gold for shareholders. Even though Apple is a trillion-dollar company, no matter what Apple does, it’s quickly called a failure and Wall Street will continue to doubt Apple going into any new market. That’s why Amazon has a P/E of 150 and Apple has a P/E of 20.
Apple needs to stay away from Tesla because no immediate good will come of it. Google would do OK with Tesla because Wall Street loves Google’s moon-shot projects which usually turn out as long-term failures but always excites investors into pumping up the stock.
Bezos has more need for Tesla that Apple.
He needs the technology to develop and build a huge fleet of electric delivery vehicles to ‘drive’ competition out of business.
I think they are a better fit than GOOGLE or Apple.
If Amazon is in the running, I would put my bet on UPS being stiff competition as a bidder also. Not many know that UPS has an entire department focused solely on developing, testing in real world and rolling out new automotive technology internally and from 3rd party IPs.
Tesla would have to get a whole lot cheaper for Apple to buy it.
Otherwise Apple would be better off buying an Aston Martin for prestige, a McLaren for cred, and a BMW for scale, brand and reach.
A profitable German Auto company selling out to Americans, not going to happen, the two British companies however would out their mother.
It’s called a hostile takeover. Start a few “investment” firms which heavily buy up the stock, then vote in a board that only includes those looking to sell.
There’s not enough money in cars to justify spending the amount it would need to take over BMW.
AFAIK, a large part of the stocks are still owned by the Quandt-family – they’d never sell.
Mercedes is something else – but that would be an interesting change of mind, given that they previously owned a share in Tesla and sold it (“The only car-maker to turn a profit on EVs”, as chairman Dieter Zetsche liked to quip). But Zetsche is going out in 2019 so maybe the Swedish guy who takes over the seat can sell that better….
The rest: all have their own strategies for EVs. No need to bring-in a bunch of Silicon-Valley hippies to shake up a hundred years of ICE-heritage 😉
It will never happen. Tesla isn’t worth buying. Among auto industry experts and leading auto engineers Tesla is a joke. As Tesla has tried to scale up manufacturing they have found out the hard way that they don’t have a clue what they’re doing. Toyota dumped their stake in Tesla after Toyota engineers got a close look at Tesla’s processes and build quality. Toyota engineers said it was garage engineering and wanted no part of it.
Tesla has a current EPS of -16.xx. That’s definitely not good. Already analysts are saying that without Elon Musk as CEO the stock will be worth about $130 less than it is right now.
I don’t know what Apple will have to gain from purchasing Tesla because it doesn’t seem to be a profitable business and Apple is only interested in profits. If anything, I’d rather see Apple purchasing SpaceX. I think that company could have a terrific future and it’s far more interesting than Tesla. I like Tesla vehicles but I honestly believe some other auto manufacturer could do a better job at mass producing electric vehicles.
Odds are low that Apple would acquire Tesla. Apple has put billions upon billions into Project Titan.
Why shell out $40b or more to buy Tesla? How long would Apple needs to sell cars at a massive profit to EVER make that up? Ever? it would take two-decades or more. Just makes no financial sense or directional sense.
Rather, Apple shows it can bring in engineers, develop it’s own weapons and go against the big boys of any industry.
Apple will build it’s own cars, CUVs and SUVs, with no need of acquiring Tesla. Apple’s getting close folks. Maybe this coming year Apple announces and shows of their vehicle and 9-12 months later starts shipping.
Exciting times are right around the corner for Apple.
If Apple buy Tesla this is what would happe:
1. Apple would immediate triple the price of a Tesla
2. Apple would upgrade the Tesla every 5-7 years, while selling the old Teslas at inflated pricing.
3. As other electric cars surpassed Tesla in performance, Timmy boy would go on a liberal cause trip and convince the libtards that the old tech Tesla was worth the money.
4. Timmy would then send out investor money to his own personal causes.
Desperate Dave? Looking for attention?
Spot on with the upgrade cycle and Apple tax…
There is a very limited market for electric cars. It is about the same size as the market for gasoline powered computers. Other than that, buying Tesla is brilliant.
Neither..
Pay 45 billion for eps -19$??
Why?
The first trillion dollar company with all its resources and talent does not have a Project Titan product for sale after all these years. Most likely will be super expensive, buggy and late to market as usual per Cook’s MO.
Apple going to figure out and integrate Tesla products and employees when the can’t even update the MacPro in five years?!?
Yeah, right…
Is Apple buying Tesla? Absolutely NO! Apple can do everything better without Tesla. They have the capital, capability, and capacity to everything they need to and Bob Mansfield is the super chief who is leading this project.
Lol, Timmidy Cook is only interested in buying small enterprises in his phone supply chain, even though he is swimming in the sea of cash.
Opportune time for making strategic acquisitions, although I am not sure about Tesla, or how it is related to this silly Project Titan.
Tesla is far more than just an electric car company and Apple would pick up a lot if they found a way to acquire or buy controlling interest in it. Musk needs a supply line guy like Cook and Apple could use a visionary. Cook is many things, a visionary is not one of them.
There is synergy here, even though it breaks the “no large acquisition” motto at Cupertino.
Telsa is a battery and solar company too. It’s (tangentially) a rocket company and a boring, mass transit company too. All of these things could play into Apple’s hands if they wished it.
Tesla’s PowerWalls and battery factory are currently unrivaled. There’s nothing like them on the market right now that’s as well designed and priced. Solar City is a mess, but Apple could clean that up in a year or two.
And if they could get a piece of Space X too? You telling me Jobs wouldn’t have wanted to own a rocket company?
Oh, yeah. And there’s the car of the future now. Apple would get its car.
Apple has the cash to do this and investors would likely reward the acquisition.
There is great synergy here. Don’t let Google or Amazon grab it Musk, the mad, visionary genius needs a hall monitor. Let him be wild and visionary and continue to build amazing hardware, while Apple manages the company better than ever before.
There is synergy here. This could work.
The only thing Apple has is the money. They don’t have the will or CEO to pull this off. Besides, have you forgotten Project Titanic that burned billions up to this point with nothing to show for it?…
Did you mean “Project Titan?” Not sure what you’re referring to otherwise.
Yes, Apple has the money or I wouldn’t have mentioned it. But as I’ve listed above, there are synergies. Apple could benefit from its own battery company, a high tech smart car that’s already overpriced and on the road with a long list of people still wanting to buy it. Solar tech, rocket tech, boring tech and who knows what else lurks in Elon’s basement. 😉
As for whether Apple’s CEO, Timo, has the will, who knows? It’s a huge deal that’s more likely NOT to happen than happen, but dare I say it again?
There is synergy here. 🙂
At the rate it’s going, Project ‘Titanic’ might actually be apt.
Lots of hateful and wishful thinking here. I don’t understand how I find them on an Apple news website. As Apple, Tesla is a disruptive company lead by one of its kind leader as was Apple once. And as I’m writing, Musk is guilty of nothing. The outcome of a trial being unknown.
He is guilty now to the tune of $40 million and loss of chairmanship…
I read “20 Million” today. A pittance.
Still, I like Musk’s crazy genius and think stepping away from the podium is a good idea. Let the mad scientist keep creating and find someone boring like Cook to run it. We’re still waiting 9 months later for delivery of our PowerWalls and the organization of Tesla is a MESS!
I was wrong, it is “40 million.” I must have read an early misprint of the figure? Weird.
Stock’s way up today (15%), so the market seems to like moving him away from the podium a bit.
I think Google would have more interest in Tesla than Apple.
I highly doubt either company would buy Tesla. In any case it would be the other way around. Amazon could buy Tesla though.