Elon Musk Says He Considered Selling Tesla to Apple But Tim Cook Declined Meeting

This week news broke that Apple is aiming to manufacture its own passenger vehicle by 2024. But instead of taking 10 years to design an electric vehicle from scratch, the company apparently had the opportunity to scoop Tesla during its "darkest days," according to a tweet from CEO Elon Musk.

“During the darkest days of the Model 3 program, I reached out to Tim Cook to discuss the possibility of Apple acquiring Tesla (for 1/10 of our current value),” Musk tweeted on Tuesday.

Musk then wrote that Cook “refused to take the meeting.”

Apple first launched efforts to build a car from scratch under the Project Titan initiative in 2014. In 2018, Doug Fields returned to Apple to help oversee Project Titan after a stint with Tesla.

Musk’s tweets were prompted by reporting from Reuters on Apple’s progress, as the company works to compete in the electric car market with its self-driving technology and a new battery design that could reportedly reduce the cost of batteries and increase the vehicle's range.

Musk called the report “strange, if true.”