Elon Musk tweeted last night saying he wanted to sell Tesla to Apple during its “darkest days” when the Model 3 rollout was supposed to happen. He unveiled that Apple CEO Tim Cook “refused” to take the meeting for the possible sale of the company to Apple. 

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"During the darkest days of the Model 3 program, I reached out to Tim Cook to discuss the possibility of Apple acquiring Tesla (for 1/10 of our current value)," . Musk wrote “He refused to take the meeting.”

Apple dished out the details in response to a tweet about how Apple has started to work on its self-driving car. He noted that Tesla was worth about one-tenth than what it is worth today. Tesla’s market capitalisation closed at $607 billion which is ten times more than what it was at the time when Musk wanted to sell the company to Apple for about $60 billion. 

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It seems like Apple has once again sparked its interest in an electric self-driving car as the company hired many ex-Tesla executives along with buying companies that make equipment for self-driving technology. A recent report suggests that Apple might launch its self-driving car in the next five years as the company has started talks with major suppliers of vehicle electronics to gear up for production in the U.S. 

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Apple has also partnered with its trusted chip partner TSMC to develop a chip for its self-driving cars. The Cupertino giant also recently shifted its leadership to John Giannandrea who is the company’s head of artificial intelligence. 

According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple recently made progress on a potential battery breakthrough which could result in the launch of the self-driving car sooner than expected. Apple has been developing a lithium-ion phosphate battery that can be put together more tightly in the car’s battery pack. This in turn reduces weight while also increasing the energy density. 

In 2015, Musk said that an electric car was “the next logical thing” for Cook and Apple to work on.

“It’s good that Apple is moving and investing in this direction. But cars are very complex compared to phones or smartwatches,” Musk said.

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