Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk, on Tuesday, reflected on the natural state of the car company after media reports that tech giant Apple Inc has pumped the brakes on its electric car project after about a decade.
What Happened: “The natural state of a car company is dead,” Musk said, reflecting on the hardships of making an auto company survive. The EV giant CEO was responding to an X user who opined that despite its significant cash pile, Apple couldn’t make a car company.
The user, also a Tesla enthusiast, further added that only two major automakers haven’t gone bankrupt to date- Ford and Tesla. While both companies have had hard times, particularly during the 2008 financial crisis, they have evaded bankruptcy thus far.
Musk has previously noted that the biggest hurdle for an auto company is not design but achieving volume production with positive cash flow.
“Prototypes are easy, volume production is hard, positive cash flow is excruciating,” the CEO said three years ago.
In another post earlier in the day, Musk responded to the news of the Apple Car with two emojis- a saluting one and a cigarette one.
Apple Shuts Down EV Dreams: Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that many of the Apple employees working on developing the electric vehicle will now move to the company’s generative AI division. Layoffs are still expected, but it's not clear how many workers will be let go.
Timelines for the long-awaited electric vehicle from Apple have been pushed back multiple times due to development issues, and Apple has repeatedly made changes to the team's leadership and strategy.
Apple finalized the decision internally among top executives in recent weeks following continued pressure from the company's board, the report said. Apple was spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year on R&D for the project, and given the recent strategy adjustments to speed up time to market, some of the company's top executives were concerned about the car's profit margin potential, it added.
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