Musk recounts how Tesla nearly died in 2008, closing its round at 6pm on Christmas Eve
XFreeze · x · 2026-10-23
Elon Musk revisited Tesla's closest brush with death: in 2008 the financing round closed at 6pm on Christmas Eve — "the last hour of the last day it was possible." Had it slipped, the company would have bounced payroll days after Christmas.
The post frames everything Tesla has since built — millions of vehicles, factories, the Supercharger network, energy storage, autonomous driving, and now humanoid robotics — as tracing back to a company that was days from being unable to pay its own employees.
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