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During its 15 years of life, Tesla has been many things. An innovator. An industry changer. A high-flyer. Oh, and it’s been controversial, too.
Earlier this year, Tesla looked like it wouldn’t make it to its sweet 16th birthday.
That’s according to company Chief Executive Elon Musk. In an interview Sunday night with Axios on HBO, Musk went into some detail about just how close Tesla came to shutting down its assembly lines and pulling the plug on its electric cars for good. Musk said the end nearly came as when Tesla was ramping up production of its Model 3 sedan in order to reach its goal of making 5,000 Model 3s in a week by the end of June. In the interview, Musk described the Model 3 as a “bet the company project,” and that Tesla was just “single-digit weeks” away from falling apart.
“Essentially the company was bleeding money like crazy,” Musk said. “And just if we didn’t solve these problems in a very short period time, we would die. And it was extremely difficult to solve them.”
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Tesla did reach its Model 3 production goal. And within weeks of hitting that target, Musk went on Twitter to say he wanted to take Tesla private for $420 a share. The controversial announcement led to weeks of drama at Tesla — and on Wall Street. By late September, Musk had cancelled his plans to take the company private.
The Securities and Exchange Commission then sued Musk for fraud. That case was quickly settled when Musk, and Tesla, each agreed to pay the SEC $20 million in fines; Musk also said he would step down as Tesla’s chairman for at least three years.
Tesla shares rose almost 2 percent on Monday, to $332.31.