Tesla was weeks from dying earlier this year, Elon Musk says

Tesla Inc. was “bleeding money like crazy” during its Model 3 production ramp-up and almost went under earlier this year, Elon Musk said Sunday.

In an interview aired Sunday night on “Axios on HBO,” Tesla’s chief executive said the electric-car company was “within single-digit weeks” of dying.

“Tesla really faced a severe threat of death due to the Model 3 production ramp.”
Elon Musk

“Essentially, the company was bleeding money like crazy, and if we didn’t solve these problems in a very short period of time, we would die. And it was extremely difficult to solve them,” Musk said.

Earlier this year, Musk described “production hell” as Tesla ramped up production to build 5,000 Model 3 sedans a week by the end of June, and said he had been sleeping on the factory floor.

Musk admitted in Sunday’s interview that he had been stretched to the limit. “People should not work this hard,” he said of his stretch working 22-hour days, seven days a week. “This is very painful.”

“It hurts my brain and my heart,” Musk said. “It hurts. It is not recommended for anyone. I just did it because if I didn’t do it... there was a good chance Tesla would die.”

In late October, Tesla posted a surprise quarterly profit, and earlier this month, Musk said Tesla is not “staring death in the face” anymore, and it will likely be cash-flow positive for all quarters going forward.

At another point in Sunday’s interview, Musk said there was a 70% chance he’ll someday take a SpaceX rocket to Mars, despite the high risk. “Your probability of dying on Mars is much higher than Earth,” he said. “It’s gonna be hard,” but “there’s lots of people who climb mountains. People die on Mount Everest all the time. They like doing it for the challenge.”

Tesla shares TSLA, -3.65% are up about 4.6% year to date, compared to the S&P 500’s SPX, -0.66% 1.5% loss.

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