Elon Musk is giving his everything to make sure Twitter runs smoothly when he appoints a new CEO at the company. It has been difficult terrain for him to make the company ascend to the heights of success. Since he acquired Twitter, he has been facing hardships in the path of revamping Twitter according to his vision. There have been many policy changes happening on the platform including policy changes, interface revamps, and other things including reviving Twitter’s dwindling revenues.
However, due to the unevenly divided attention to Twitter, Musk has been neglecting his other two ventures, especially Tesla. The stock prices of Tesla are plummeting, and the shareholders are complaining about the same. In a new move, he has irked Tesla’s board and other members by reducing the cost of the Tesla cars due to the growing price competition in the Electric Vehicle industry. This is not new for Tesla as the premiere car company has been facing financial bumps since its inception. So, how did Musk save the company when it was on the brink of bankruptcy?
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Elon Musk Got Funding From Daimler For Tesla
Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning were two engineers who birthed the idea of creating a solar-powered car named Tesla in 2003. Along with JB Straubel and Ian Wright, Elon Musk gave wings to the electric car venture. In 2004, the company started raising funds from investors. The Tesla owner funded $6.5 million during the Series A funding.
The wheel was spinning with other companies investing $13 million, collectively in the Series B funding. The company unveiled its first vehicle in 2006 after Series C funding. However, the year 2008 was bad for Tesla due to the global financial crisis.
During that time, Musk said, “The global financial system has gone through the worst crisis since the Great Depression… Our goal as a company is to be cash-flow positive within six to nine months. To do so, we must continue to ramp up our production rate, improve Roadster contribution margin and reduce operating expenses.”
Elon gambled with Tesla, SpaceX, and Solar City with money from PayPal. However, problems during the financial crisis were unprecedented. The government rolled out grants to the company for survival, but Tesla was on the brink of bankruptcy. Daimler, a German carmaker, pitched in $50 million for the car company to get it out of the problem.
During a presentation at the Paris-Sorbonne University in 2015, the billionaire said, “Even then, we only narrowly survived…We actually closed the financing round on Christmas Eve 2008. It was the last hour of the last day that it was possible.” Musk invested the last bit of money he had to save the company on Christmas Eve.
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The Billionaire Refuted The Claim That The Company Received Government Funding
In February 2023, Ralph Nader, an environmentalist and consumer welfare activist claimed that Elon Musk used a large amount of U.S. government welfare grants.
Ralph Nader, you are lying – shame on you! I personally provided almost all Tesla funding, based on my proceeds from PayPal, from Series A in 2004 until Series C in 2007.
In late 2008, I gave Tesla the last money I had. It was that or the company would have died. We closed that… https://t.co/fi2GdWER0d
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 24, 2023
In a tweet, he wrote, “Musk (@elonmusk) started Tesla with a huge U.S. government welfare grant. He has taken taxpayers to the cleaners for his factories and for Starlink. He is a gigantic corporate welfare king masquerading as a capitalist businessman. -R”
Elon Musk-led Tesla received their first funding from the government in 2009 under the ‘Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program’. They received $465 million in loans. The billionaire replied to him writing, “Ralph Nader, you are lying – shame on you! I personally provided almost all Tesla funding, based on my proceeds from PayPal, from Series A in 2004 until Series C in 2007.”
Tesla repaid the loan in 2013 along with $12 million in interest. Musk continued, “The first meaningful government funding Tesla received was in Q2 2010 from a loan under the vehicle efficiency lending program. Tesla paid back that loan early with interest. Taxpayers actually made a profit.”
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