One night in early 2019, Ford executives boarded a plane en route to Detroit.

And according to a former Ford executive, they were joined by the CEO and founder of

Rivian, an electric car startup, a man named RJ Scarrange.

Ford and Rivian were negotiating a possible partnership to design and manufacture electric

vehicles.

And so for the next four hours, they were sort of texting and emailing with their team

about, you know, terms of what this deal could look like.

But Ford wasn't the only company looking to partner with Rivian.

So was General Motors.

Ford's rival for the last hundred years.

Once they landed, what happened?

So the Ford plane taxis to this hangar, which it happens to share with GM.

And according to Ford executives on board, they see another corporate plane outside the

hangar and two GM-made Cadillac escalated park next to it.

So they recognized that as a GM plane.

And so I think the last thing that RJ wanted to happen was to deplane Ford's corporate

jet and be seen by GM executives.

There were Detroit's two biggest automakers both chasing an investment in the same electric

vehicle startup.

One would end up with a multi-billion dollar profit and the other would leave empty-handed.

Welcome to the journal, our show about money, business, and power.

I'm Kate Limbaugh, it's Wednesday, November 17th.

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