DEARBORN, Mich. – Billionaire entrepreneur and inventor Elon Musk talked his tumultuous year on Tech journalist Kara Swisher’s Recode Decode podcast.
In an interview that lasted more than an hour Musk weighed in on many topics including the difficulty of running an automobile company.
“Making a car company successful is monumentally difficult. There have been many attempts to create a car company and they have all failed, even the ones that gave a strong base of customers, thousands of dealers, thousands of service centers they’ve already spent the capital for the factories like GM or Chrysler, still went bankrupt in the last recession." Musk said. "Ford and Tesla made it barely through the last recession. There’s a good chance Ford doesn’t make it through the next recession.”
Ford had no comment but pointed to a balance sheet with $34 billion in liquidity and has no plans in the foreseeable future to end dividends.