On Tuesday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted that he thought of promoting his electrical automobile firm to Apple lately, however Apple CEO Tim Prepare dinner was not even fascinated by taking a gathering.

Particularly, Musk wrote in a tweet on December 22:

“In the course of the darkest days of the Mannequin 3 program, I reached out to Tim Prepare dinner to debate the potential of Apple buying Tesla (for 1/10 of our present worth). He refused to take the assembly.”

On Tuesday, Musk additionally made remarks about lithium iron phosphate batteries that Apple is reportedly creating to be used in autos, per a Reuters report on Monday.

“Unusual, if true,” Musk wrote. “Tesla already makes use of iron-phosphate for medium vary automobiles made in our Shanghai manufacturing facility.- A monocell is electrochemically inconceivable, as max voltage is ~100X too low. Perhaps they meant cells bonded collectively, like our structural battery pack?”

It was a uncommon admission from the mercurial CEO that he as soon as thought of giving up management of the corporate he helped construct and take to a market worth that is greater than the top nine automakers combined. Tesla has not mentioned a sale in any monetary submitting.

In 2018, Musk did publicly say the car business was “hell,” and that he was sleeping on the manufacturing facility to attempt to remedy the issues the corporate was having because it tried to begin mass-manufacturing its Mannequin 3 electrical sedans.

He additionally beforehand mentioned, in a tweet, that Tesla as soon as received “about a month” from chapter through the Mannequin 3 ramp-up — a element that the corporate by no means disclosed in its quarterly filings.

Tesla and Apple have all the time competed for expertise in and past Silicon Valley. In 2015, Musk known as Apple the Tesla graveyard. “When you do not make it at Tesla you go work for Apple,” he quipped then.

In July 2018, Apple employed Tesla engineering chief Doug Field — a former Apple worker — again to the corporate, following scores of other employees.

On the time, Tesla advised CNBC in an announcement about Apple’s skill to poach key staff from its ranks: “Tesla is the exhausting path. Now we have 100 occasions much less cash than Apple, so in fact they’ll afford to pay extra. We’re in extraordinarily tough battles towards entrenched auto corporations that make 100 occasions extra automobiles than we did final yr, so in fact that is very exhausting work.”

Apple has by no means acknowledged plans to construct a automobile, however Prepare dinner has admitted that it is labored on “autonomous programs” that may very well be utilized in self-driving automobiles or for different functions.

Apple and Tesla didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.