Encore: Tesla vs Detroit | Accelerate Faster | 1

Business Wars

Wondery

History, Business, David Brown, Management

4.6 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 26 April 2023

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

While the U.S. government pushed automakers to make low-emission vehicles in the 1990s, consumers loved their gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs. But in 2003, Elon Musk's Tesla Motors arrives with environmentally friendly, high-performance cars that people actually want.

Motor City smirks as Musk pilots Tesla through crushing financial crises, spectacular quality control disasters and his own shocking public displays of bad behavior. But his pricey cars are catching on. Detroit is taking notice. Musk and Tesla are on a path of disruption that will change the industry and put EVs on the map.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Tesla helped make Elon Musk the richest man on the planet, giving him the power to take
0:04.8	Twitter by force.
0:06.5	But how did he amass such a fortune building electric cars?
0:10.4	Once considered the ultimate boondoggle of the automobile industry.
0:14.3	To try and answer that question, we're rerunning this series now, along with a new business
0:18.6	war spinoff miniseries flipping the bird, Elon vs. Twitter about Musk's Twitter takeover.
0:35.7	Is November 2008 at an upscale steakhouse in Beverly Hills, California?
0:41.2	Elon Musk is in trouble.
0:44.9	He's meeting with his trusted confidante and investor Jason Callacanis.
0:48.7	How you doing, Elon?
0:50.7	I've been better Jason.
0:54.0	Musk's trifecta of companies is in catastrophic financial crisis.
0:59.1	SpaceX, Solar City, and his five-year-old electric car start-up Tesla are close to going
1:05.1	under.
1:06.5	To keep his empire alive, Musk burned through investor funds and virtually every penny
1:11.9	of the millions he made from selling PayPal.
1:15.3	It's bad.
1:16.3	Very bad.
1:18.8	But it turns out things could get worse.
1:22.5	The housing market tanked a few months ago, and the country is in a major recession.
1:28.2	As Callacanis reaches for a breadstick, he cuts to the chase.
1:32.6	I read somewhere that Tesla has about a month of funding left.
	...

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