West Lord (@MyWestLord) “Elon Musk stood in a Hollywood living room in 2008, 12 days from bankruptcy, and” — TopicDigg

Elon Musk stood in a Hollywood living room in 2008, 12 days from bankruptcy, and pitched a $109,000 car to people who thought he was joking. His own Roadster is parked outside production unit 1 and he mentions it the way other men mention a bicycle. He explains the money first. Congress approved $25 billion to build energy-efficient vehicles, then the Big Three flew to Washington and asked for it to cover payroll on gas guzzlers instead. Congress said yes. “That gets them to about February,” he says. Tesla applied to the same fund for the thing the fund was actually written for: a cheaper car. Then comes the part nobody in the room registers. Tesla pays no dividends and never will, because every penny from every $109,000 Roadster goes into the next car down the price ladder. His salary is minimum wage. He doesn’t mention that the company has days of cash left, or that an emergency round has to close by Christmas Eve or it’s over. He talks about cell phones instead how the first ones cost a fortune, how you can’t reach the cheap version without selling the expensive one first. 100 cars built, and the 100th goes out Tuesday. He says he’ll hand over the keys himself. GM filed for bankruptcy 6 months later, and the man on minimum wage didn’t.