Powertrain Deals Between Tesla & Big Auto In The Past … And In The Future?

[#Superme]

I published an article early this morning about a potential partnership between GM and Tesla in which GM would build electric trucks using Tesla powertrains. Tesla denied such a partnership and GM declined to comment on the story. (Despite what some people have written, GM did not deny the rumor. It declined to comment.) I am not permitted to say much more regarding our sourcing due to requests for anonymity, but the story was not invented out of thin air and the originating rumors came from two unrelated parties based in different locations. Also, I find it interesting that news broke a few hours later that GM and Amazon are in talks about investing in Rivian. Odd timing, eh? Some have claimed this definitively knocks down the idea that GM might want to use a Tesla powertrain for an electric truck. I personally think it’s more than a coincidence that both matters came up at around the same time, and I believe there are a few possibilities here. But I’ll come back to that conjecture at the end of this piece. For now, I’m jumping to a loosely related matter I’ve been planning to write about for a couple of weeks. As some of you read, I collected the story that a certain early investor in Tesla who held 7.6% of the company soon after IPO turned around and sold all of its shares in one day after receiving a “hold strong, have faith, we’ll get through this” kind of update from Elon Musk. The shareholder sold all of its shares (7%) the day after receiving that update. I received this information more than a year ago from someone fairly close to the matter on the former shareholder’s side, and I confirmed it definitively before publishing the article. Some readers thought I was referring to Ron Baron, who has mentioned in interviews that he held Tesla shares very early, sold them, and then got back in at a significantly higher price. I was not referring to Mr. Baron and don’t think he ever held more than 5% of Tesla’s shares, certainly not after IPO. The shareholder I was referring to was essentially the Abu Dhabi government, through a specific agency, the Abu Dhabi Water & Electricity Authority (ADWEA). Despite having definitive confirmation of the overall story, I wanted to tidy up some specific details, so I spent a few hours going through old SEC filings. That was interesting by itself since it threw me back into much earlier Tesla history — mostly stories that I knew well but that nonetheless struck me as I looked at the old press releases and SEC documents. I decided I’d use a couple of stories for some Tesla flashback articles. (If I found it interesting to go back in time and reflect on Tesla’s progress since then, surely others would as well.)