Apple, Tesla Union Would Be 'Phenomenal'

Apple AAPL and Tesla TSLA sparked investor interest this week after The San Francisco Chronicle revealed that Apple's M&A chief, Adrian Perica, met with Tesla CEO Elon Musk last spring. Not surprisingly, this led many to believe that Apple is (or was) interested in acquiring Tesla. "We can dream, right?" Chris Camillo, a self-directed investor and author of Laughing at Wall Street, told Benzinga. "I think it would be phenomenal. I think that would be a huge story for Apple." Camillo, who is preparing to launch a hedge fund that is exclusively based on the analysis of social chatter, said that an Apple-Tesla union would provide investors with a "long-term story" they are not used to seeing. "A lot of stories for Apple tend to be six to 12 months out," he said. "Apple and Tesla together, all of a sudden it changes the story for Apple into a decade story. Now we're thinking about Apple 10 years from now, what could be. Fifteen years from now, what could be. 'Cause that's how long it takes to properly evolve an international car manufacturing company." Related: Tesla's Elon Musk: "There's Definitely Not Gonna Be A Recall" Suspicious or not, Camillo took note of the fact that this story came to light a few days before Tesla is scheduled to report its fourth quarter earnings results. "I just don't know if there were any underlying intentions there of a story being released so close to Tesla's earnings," said Camillo. Missed Opportunity Every investor has regrets. But not all of them had to occur. "I missed Tesla," Camillo admitted. "It was one of my investment regrets. If you look at my methodology, Tesla certainly should have been a company I would have invested in." Camillo lives in Dallas, Texas. As someone who resides in the middle of the country, he likes to say that he has a lot of opportunities without touching the "noise" that you get on the West Coast. This has helped him make some wise investing decisions, but it also caused him to miss out on one of the world's most innovative automakers. "Tesla was big on the West Coast," said Camillo. "There were not any Teslas in Texas until very recently. I think they had issues selling Teslas here in Texas. I still have never seen a Tesla face-to-face on the road. Amazing, I'm probably one of the last people not to have seen a Tesla. So I completely missed that story." Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Louis Bedigian had no position in the equities mentioned in this report.