'Made me quite sad': Musk recalls billionaire who said Tesla would fail

Elon Musk has revealed that billionaire investor and Vice President of Berkshire Hathaway Charlie Munger once told him that Tesla would fail.

On Wednesday, the 98-year-old investor said cryptocurrencies should have been banned and likened it to "venereal disease".

Responding to his comments, Musk, a crypto supporter, recalled the time when Munger said Tesla could fail.

"I was at lunch with Munger in 2009 where he told the whole table all the ways Tesla would fail," said Elon Musk in a reply tweet.

"Made me quite sad, but I told him I agreed with all those reasons & that we would probably die, but it was worth trying anyway," he added further.

Now, after a decade, Tesla is one of the world's top automakers, and Musk is one of the world's richest people.

Musk recently said that 2021 was a breakthrough year for Tesla and for electric vehicles in general, as the EV maker ended last year with $5.5 billion in net income, compared to $721 million in 2020.

Tesla produced 305,840 vehicles in the fourth quarter, a 70 per cent increase over the previous year.

In 2021, the company delivered 936,172 vehicles, just short of the promised 1 million vehicles but still an increase of 87 per cent over the previous year.

--IANS

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