Elon Musk репостнул(а)
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In April 2009, Elon Musk was asked why General Motors wouldn't just buy Tesla.
"You can't afford it."
Fifty-five days later, GM was bankrupt.
He was 37, and his salary was $1.
In late 2007 his own car cost $140,000 to build. Tesla was selling it for $92,000, a $48,000 hole in every car, with the money almost gone.
November 2008: GM's Rick Wagoner flew to Washington on a $36 million corporate jet to ask Congress for $10 to 12 billion. A congressman asked him if he would work for $1 a year. Wagoner, paid $15.7 million in 2007, said he had no position on that today.
The clip is two moments from one evening at Silicon Valley's Churchill Club. In the first, Musk admits how close Tesla came to running out of money. In the second, he explains Detroit.
"Tesla was in a really dire situation at the end of 2007."
"This was inevitable. It was only a question of when."
That is Musk on April 7, 2009, four weeks after the stock market hit its crisis low and fourteen months before Tesla went public at $17 a share.
The money rules in that talk fit on an index card.
Know your floor before you need it. At 17, with a few thousand dollars, he tested whether he could live on under $1 a day, hot dogs and oranges bought in bulk.
Set the first target at groceries. Zip2 was started to cover food. It sold for over $300 million.
Learn the money side, or someone else decides for you. That is why a physics student also took an economics degree at Wharton.
If rent eats the business, cut the rent. He and his brother slept on futons in the office and showered at the YMCA.
Know your unit cost before you scale. That $48,000 hole nearly ended Tesla.
GM's bill went to the public: a $49.5 billion rescue, and $11.2 billion of it never came back to taxpayers.
In the same talk Musk said he would love to take over NUMMI, the GM and Toyota plant in Fremont, but couldn't afford it unless someone gave it to him. GM walked away from the plant in bankruptcy. Tesla bought it the next year for $42 million.
The full 93-minute talk is free on YouTube. In 17 years it has gathered about 333,000 views.
GM had billions of public money and still walked away from the factory. Musk started with one number: how little he could live on. Work out yours before you quit a paycheck.
18:05 · 6 октября 2026 г. · 143,2 тыс. просмотров
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