It’s easy to forget that Tesla was on the verge of bankruptcy a couple of years ago, but as we all know, the company was able to turn things around. However, what we didn’t know was that the company actually turned to Google at one point in order to discuss a buyout, which was easy seeing as how Elon Musk and Larry Page are good friends. The discussions actually went as far as having lawyers write up negotiations, but the deal ended up falling through somewhere along the line.
In early 2013, Tesla was near bankruptcy. Founder Elon Musk turned to his friend Larry Page, cofounder and CEO of Google, to buy out Tesla. The deal went past handshake territory and both company’s lawyers drafted up negotiations, but somewhere along the way, the deal fell through. By May 2013, Tesla had turned everything around and posted its first quarterly profit. A report in Bloomberg today reveals just how close Musk came to selling Tesla to Google. Tesla’s flagship car, the Model S, had growing pains after launching in June 2012: Software glitches and cost-saving interior design irked buyers, which led to negative word of mouth. That almost sank the company, says Bloomberg, and after Valentine’s Day 2013, Musk was negotiating with Page to buy Tesla out. Bloomberg’s sources say that Musk kept stipulations in the deal that would have let him stay on to run Tesla at least until the company released its third-generation electric car.