Elon Musk on the meeting that saved Tesla.
"Everything works in PowerPoint."
In January 2009, Daimler executives came to Tesla grumpy and ready to walk out of the slide deck. So Elon stopped the slides: "Would you like to drive the car?"
His team had bought a Smart car in Mexico and stuffed a Roadster powertrain into it. Daimler had never seen anything like it.
"What it did lead to, which was really essential, was Tesla getting saved by Daimler investing $50 million."
He told us this story in our 2022 interview at Giga Texas. 4 days until the 10/10 𝕏 Takeover at Giga Texas.
@elonmusk @theXtakeover
Demo or slide deck: which one wins you the room?