Business - Entrepreneurship
Updated: April 13, 2021

Elon Musk Offered Volkswagen CEO The Role Of Tesla CEO

By Oluwatosin Ogunjuyigbe
April 13, 2021
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk reportedly attempted to hire the current Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess to take his own role as chief executive officer at Tesla in 2015.

A report by Business Insider revealed that before 2015, when he switched from BMW to Volkswagen, Diess had an employment contract with Tesla ready to sign.

Diess is one of the most respected automotive executives in the business. After more than 15 years at BMW where he was one of the top executives, he decided to leave in 2014. Since then, BMW’s electrification efforts have faltered.

Elon Musk planned to hand over the management of the company to the German businessman, a negotiation that only a few people knew within the German multinational, who, according to the report declined to comment.

In recent years, we have learned of Musk and Diess’s relationship, as they both publicly compliment each other’s leadership roles in the electrification of the auto industry.

But now we know from the report that the two knew each other from Diess’s days at BMW. They apparently met in person in 2014, which is surprising since Tesla didn’t have a relationship with BMW like it did with BMW’s rival Daimler, who was a Tesla shareholder.

In 2015 Tesla was going through a difficult time with news such as the departure of Toyota or Daimler from the shareholding. Something that eventually turned to an advantage for Musk and his investors who were able to recover a good amount of shares at a price today ridiculous. And it is that by that time Tesla in its entirety was worth just 20,000 million dollars. A valuation that today has shot up to 600,000 million, and rising.

While the report doesn’t explain why Diess didn’t take the role at Tesla and went to Volkswagen instead, it did state that Diess still had a positive view of Tesla and even reportedly personally invested in the electric automaker.

After just a few years at Volkswagen and following the Dieselgate scandal, Diess took the reins as CEO of the group and has been accelerating the automaker’s electrification effort. He took inspiration from Tesla in the process.