Tesla CEO Elon Musk responded to calls for his EV maker to buy competing startup Rivian, in what would be a monumental merger between two industry-leading companies.
Musk was in Philadelphia on Friday night for an event ahead of the U.S. presidential election as he was attempting to help former U.S. President Donald Trump swing Pennsylvania. The stop is one of several Musk has planned in the Keystone State.
The event, while more focused on politics, was also met with questions about Tesla, Musk’s electric vehicle company.
One attendee who was there to ask Musk a question pushed the CEO on why Tesla had not sought to buy Rivian, a competing automaker that has a solid consumer base, strong products, and an innovative CEO running the company but a shaky financial platform.
Musk said:
“I wish them the best. I hope they do well. The car industry is a very difficult industry. There’s only two U.S. car companies that haven’t gone bankrupt, and that’s Ford and Tesla. Rivian’s going to have a hard time. It’s insanely difficult to compete in the car industry. If it were not for two technology discontinuities, one being electrification and the other being autonomy, I think Tesla could not succeed without solving both.”
Rivian has managed to make it several years and is set to roll out its next generation of products with a new platform that will bring costs down for it and consumers, as well as streamline the manufacturing process.
Elon Musk was asked tonight why @Tesla hasn’t bought Rivian:
“I wish them the best. I hope they do well. The car industry is a very difficult industry. There’s only two U.S. car companies that haven’t gone bankrupt and that’s Ford and Tesla. Rivian’s going to have a hard time.… pic.twitter.com/yzgSlKkpTs
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) October 19, 2024
However, it is feeling the pains of starting an EV company without a relatively endless amount of financial backing, like Lucid with the Saudi PIF.
It had investors like Ford and Amazon, but those partnerships ended or became non-exclusive.
Although it remains in a situation where it can build vehicles and expand products, it has yet to make a profit on the cars it builds for customers, something that took Tesla several years to achieve.
Competition is good for the market, as well, and Rivian is currently building a vehicle platform that caters to a different consumer base than Tesla. Rivian’s vehicles, while all-electric like Tesla’s, are more geared toward the outdoors and camping.
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