Apple to merge with Tesla (2nd Update)
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| President-elect Donald Trump and his advisers met with 13 prominent technology executives at Trump Tower in New York on Wednesday. |
| Photo: Getty Images |
The tech giants of the world met with President-Elect Donald Trump Wednesday. The 90-minute meeting in Trump Tower in New York marked the first time Mr. Trump met leaders of some of the nation's most valuable companies, most of whom had supported Hillary Clinton during the campaign, and several of whom were the targets of criticism from Mr. Trump.
"I'm here to help you folks do well," Mr. Trump told 13 tech executives, seated with about a dozen Trump team and family members around a large rectangular table.
The group discussed job creation, China, tax cuts, repatriating foreign assets, education, infrastructure, and eliminating rules that prevent U.S. firms from doing business abroad, according to a release from Mr. Trump's transition team. The group might meet as often as quarterly, the release said.
After Wednesday's meeting Mr. Cook of Apple and Mr. Musk of Tesla stayed at Trump Tower to meet privately with Mr. Trump. Rumor has it that Trump told the two men exactly what AR1.com has said for years now – Apple lost Steve Jobs the visionary, but has loads of cash. Elon Musk is the second coming of Steve Jobs – a true visionary who needs cash to make his dreams reality.
Tim Cook has zero vision. He is truly just a bean counter, supply chain expert and gay rights activist. The two companies are a match made in heaven – Apple has over $100 billion in cash it has no clue how to spend it to create the next big-thing, and Musk's Tesla is deep in debt, but is innovating at a fast pace and needs Apple's cash hoard. Bring the two companies together and you will have magic. In part from the Wall Street Journal
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| Cook as Operations Manager and Elon Musk as CEO would be a knockout duo. Elon Musk is the new Steve Jobs. Tesla needs Apple's cash hoard and Apple needs Musk's vision. |
05/03/16 Apple Inc.’s dismal earnings announcement shows why it badly needs to rethink its innovation model and leadership.
Its last breakthrough innovation was the iPhone — which was released in 2007. Since then, Apple AAPL, -0.20% has simply been tweaking its componentry, adding faster processors and more advanced sensors, and playing with its size — making it bigger in the iPad and smaller in the Apple Watch.
Chief Executive Tim Cook is probably one of the most competent operations executives in the industry but is clearly not a technology visionary. Apple needs another Steve Jobs to reinvent itself; otherwise it will join the ranks of HP and Compaq.
That Steve Jobs may be Elon Musk — who has proven to be the greatest visionary of our times.
In the same period that Apple released the iPhone and successors, Musk developed two generations of world-changing electric vehicles, perfected a new generation of battery technologies and released first-generation autonomous driving capabilities. And that was in Tesla Motors Inc. TSLA, -1.05% .
In his other company, SpaceX, Musk developed a spacecraft, docked it with the International Space Station and returned with cargo. He’s launched two rockets to space that have made vertical landings back on Earth — one on a helicopter-like pad and another on a ship in the ocean.
Musk is also developing the Hyperloop, a high-speed transportation system in which pressurized capsules ride on an air cushion driven by linear induction motors and air compressors. In discussions that I had with him in 2012, Musk told me that his ambition was to build a space station and retire on Mars. He wasn’t joking, I expect he will do this.
Apple has reportedly been developing an electric vehicle because it sees a car as an iPhone on wheels. It is conceivable that it will demonstrate something like this in the next five to 10 years.
But Tesla already has this technology — and it is amazing. I have likened my Tesla Model S to a spaceship that travels on land. I consider it to be better than any Apple product — because it is more complex, elegant, and better designed than anything that Apple offers.
Apple should buy Tesla and appoint Elon Musk as CEO.
Would Musk be interested in being part of Apple when Tesla is on top of the world? Tesla just received nearly $20 billion in orders for its Model 3 — a record for any product in history. Musk reportedly turned down an acquisition offer from Google in 2013 when it was on the verge of bankruptcy. Why would he consider such an offer now, from Apple?
My guess is that he would do this — if he were offered the chief executive role.
A combination of an operations executive such as Cook and a visionary such as Musk would be formidable. Apple’s vast resources would allow Tesla to scale up its operations to deliver the nearly 400,000 orders it has received for the Model 3. Tesla would be able to leverage Apple’s global distribution network and incorporate many new technologies. Musk would be able to pursue his dream projects while Cook worried about delivery and detail.
And Cook would get the visionary that Apple badly needs, someone who is even a cut above Steve Jobs. The markets would rejoice and take Apple stock to a level higher than anything it has seen before.
Consider that Tesla’s market cap of $33 billion is eminently affordable by Apple, which has reserves of more than $200 billion. And Apple lost $47 billion in valuation with its earnings announcement Tuesday, which is more than it would likely cost to acquire Tesla.
This could be a marriage made in heaven. We would get world-changing innovations as well as our space colonies.
Vivek Wadhwa is a fellow at the Arthur & Toni Rembe Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University and director of research at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering. He writes on wadhwa.com
04/01/16 Rumor has it that Apple has agreed in principle to buy cash-starved Tesla Motors for an undisclosed amount of $ billions.
Apple CEO Tim Cook finally realized that he is just a good operations manager and that Apple has no visionary to invent future products since Steve Jobs died.
Recognizing that Elon Musk is the new Steve Jobs, Cook had to figure out a way to steal Elon Musk and bring vision back to Apple.
With word that the rumored Apple Car is just vaporware to this point, and recognizing that Apple has so much cash it doesn't know what to do with it, Cook has been looking for a good place to spend it, and buying Tesla helps him save face since his vision for an Apple Car is a flop.
Given that Apple's excess cash is just what Tesla needs to turn the corner toward profitability, it was a match made in heaven so-to-speak.
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| In a dream Steve Jobs told Tim Cook "buy Tesla you idiot or I will smash my good iPad over your head" |
In fact sources say Steve Jobs was appearing to Tim Cook in dreams every night telling him "buy Tesla you idiot."
One night in particular Cook woke from his dream covered in sweat, his heart pounding, after Jobs supposedly in the dream smashed two iPad Pros over Cook's head and told him again, "buy Tesla you idiot."
The agreement calls for Tesla car's to be renamed Apple Model S, Apple Model X and Apple Model 3 and they will all convert to Apple's secret Graphene based Ultracapacitors instead of the Lithium-Ion batteries they currently use. The Graphene Ultracapacitors will give the Apple Cars a 1,000-mile range on a charge and the recharge time will be just 5 minutes.
And since capacitors can discharge a huge amount of energy quickly, the 0-60 mph time of the Apple cars is said to be under 2.0-seconds beating all other passenger cars built.
It's clear the Apple Cars will be the death knell of internal combustion engines and we expect that in 5 short years you won't be able to buy a fossil fuel burning engine anywhere.
Steve Jobs contributed to this story