Elon Musk is the CEO of an autonomous electric automotive company ‘Tesla’ and Tim Cook is the CEO of a smart devices and digital services company ‘Apple’. Keeping the different nature of their line of work, one might ask could the two tech leaders be considered rivals? Well yes. Apple is allegedly developing an EV under the codename ‘Project Titan” and that news has not settled well with Mr. Musk, who is vocal about his disapproval of Apple and its CEO, Tim Cook.
Why did Tim Cook drop the ‘F’ bomb?
Recently, Mark Gurman of Bloomberg shared a snippet of DailyMail’s report on a new book by Wall Street Journal reporter Tim Higgins called “Power Play: Tesla, Elon Musk and the Bet of the Century”.
On the alleged acquisition of Tesla by Apple before the success of Model 3, the extract states that the deal did not go through because Mr. Musk had demanded to be made the CEO of Apple. And to that demand, Mr. Cook had only two words in response.
“Cook at first thought Musk meant that he wanted to remain CEO of Tesla after the merger and said that he was not opposed to the idea.
But when Musk clarified that he expected to take Cook’s job as Apple CEO, Cook responded ‘F*** you’ and hung up, according to the new book.”
Rewinding a bit, the news of Tesla ever being up for acquisition by Apple came from the horse’s mouth. In December 2020, when it was reported that Apple is developing a new revolutionary monocell battery for Apple Car, Mr. Musk was quick to get on Twitter to debunk the alleged battery technology.
He also added that Tim Cook refused to take a meeting with him to discuss a possible acquisition of his company ‘Tesla’ at 1/10 of the current value. Following up on that information, Gurman estimated that Mr. Musk was indicating a $60 billion valuation.
And these bits are enough to trigger Mr.Musk. In response to Gurman’s new tweet and previous $60 billion claim, Musk called Tim Higgins’ book “false and boring” and clarified that he and Tim Cook had never met or communicated with each other. He reiterated the previous acquisition story but this time he gave 6% of the current worth of the company as the proposed valuation.
Cook & I have never spoken or written to each other ever.
There was a point where I requested to meet with Cook to talk about Apple buying Tesla. There were no conditions of acquisition proposed whatsoever.
He refused to meet. Tesla was worth about 6% of today’s value.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 30, 2021
Not stopping at the main point, he used to opportunity to snipe at Apple, once again by calling App Store’s in-app purchases commission fee a “global tax on the internet.” Earlier, he criticized Apple at Tesla’s earnings call. As witty as netizens are, one was quick to point out that Musk was using an iPhone to belittle the very company that made it.
-uses iPhone to tweet
— . (@yaboi_YG) July 30, 2021
As for Tim Cook, he has not officially or socially remarked on this one-sided rivalry. On the contrary, he praised Tesla for leading the electric car industry.
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