Elon Musk Bailed Out of $6bn Google Takeover To Save Tesla From 2013 Bankruptcy

Posted by samzenpus on Monday April 20, 2015 @03:46AM from the on-second-thought dept.

An anonymous reader sends word that Elon Musk almost sold Tesla to Google in 2013 when the company was close to bankruptcy. "Elon Musk had a deal to sell his electric car company Tesla, to Google for $6bn (£4bn) when it was heading for bankruptcy with just two weeks' worth of cash left in the bank. During the first week of March 2013, Musk spoke to his friend Larry Page, chief executive of Google, about the search giant buying his car company, which at the time was suffering from falling sales amid technical problems with the few Model S luxury sedan cars it had delivered. Ashlee Vance, author of upcoming book Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, claims in an extra for Bloomberg two people 'with direct knowledge of the deal' said Musk and Page agreed to the buyout and shook on a price of around $6bn. This was plus promises from Google to invest $5bn for factory expansion and to not break Tesla up or close it down."

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Good for him and the world. by BarbaraHudson · 2015-04-20 03:54 · Score: 5, Interesting

More competition is better. We know google is working on their own car - but the Tesla is here today and doing better than anyone ever thought. No wonder the guy can do rocket science.

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"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Re:Billionaire saved by taxpayer by randallman · 2015-04-20 05:32 · Score: 3, Interesting

"but low and middle income grad students, who really are the future"
How so? Does the government get some guarantee on these grad students that's any better than what the DOE has? I don't think so.