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followed that by acquiring a 10 percent stake in Tesla for $50 million. The companies also formed a strategic partnership to have Tesla provide the battery packs for one thousand of Daimler’s Smart cars. “That money was important and went a long way back then,” said O’Connell. “It was also a validation. Here is the company that invented the internal combustion engine, and they are investing in us. It was a seminal moment, and I am sure it gave the guys over at the DOE the feeling that we were real. It’s not just our scientists saying this stuff is good. It’s Mercedes freaking Benz.” Sure enough, in January 2010, the Department of Energy struck a $465 million loan agreement with Tesla.* The money was far more than Tesla had ever expected to get from the government. But it still represented just a fraction of the $1 billion plus that most carmakers needed to bring a new vehicle to market. So, while Musk and O’Connell were thrilled to get the money, they still wondered if Tesla would be able to live up to the bargain. Tesla would need one more windfall or, perhaps, to steal a car factory. And in May 2010, that’s more or less what it did. General Motors and Toyota had teamed up in 1984 to build New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., or NUMMI, on the site of a former GM assembly plant in Fremont, California, a city on the outskirts of Silicon Valley. The companies hoped the joint facility would combine the best of American and Japanese automaking skills and result in higher-quality, cheaper cars. The factory went on to pump out millions of vehicles like the Chevy Nova and Toyota Corolla. Then the recession hit, and GM found itself trying to climb out of bankruptcy. It decided to abandon the plant in 2009, and Toyota followed right after, saying it would close down the whole facility, leaving five thousand people without jobs. All of a sudden, Tesla had the chance to buy a 5.3-million-square-foot plant in its backyard. Just one month after the last Toyota Corolla went off the manufacturing line in April 2010, Tesla and Toyota announced a partnership and transfer of the factory. Tesla agreed to pay $42 million for a large portion of the factory (once worth $1 billion), while Toyota invested $50 million in Tesla for a 2.5 percent stake in the company. Tesla had basically secured a factory, including the massive metal- stamping machines and other equipment, for free.* The string of fortunate turns for Tesla left Musk feeling good. Just after the factory deal closed in the summer of 2010, Tesla started the process of filing for an initial public offering. The company obviously needed as much capital as it could get to bring the Model S to market and push forward with its other technology projects. Tesla hoped to raise about $200 million. For Musk, going public represented something of a Faustian bargain. Ever since the Zip2 and PayPal days, Musk has done everything in his power to maintain absolute control over his companies. Even if he remained the largest shareholder in Tesla, the company would be subjected to the capricious nature of the public markets. Musk, the ultimate long-term thinker, would face constant second-guessing from investors looking for short-term returns. Tesla would also be subject to public scrutiny, as it would be forced to open its books for public consumption. This was bad because Musk prefers to operate in secrecy and because Tesla’s financial situation looked awful. The company had one product (the Roadster), had huge development costs, and had bordered on bankruptcy months earlier. The car blog Jalopnik greeted the Tesla IPO as a Hail Mary rather than a sound fiscal move. “For lack of a better phrase, Tesla is a money pit,” the blog wrote. “Since the company’s founding in 2003, it’s managed to incur over $290 million in losses on just $147.6 million in revenue.” Told by a source that Tesla hoped to sell 20,000 units of the Model S per year at $58,000 a pop, Jalopnik scoffed. “Even considering the supposed pent-up demand among environmentalists for a car like thePDF Image | SpaceX and the Quest
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