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Had, had:
Volkswagen boss
Herbert Diess
apparently had a job offer from Tesla in 2015
Photo: STEVE MARCUS / REUTERS
Volkswagen boss
Herbert Diess
(62)
makes
no secret of
his admiration for the US electric car manufacturer Tesla
: both internally and publicly, he regularly praises the competition, often calling on his own people to take an example from the efficiency and speed of development of the Californians to take.
Sometimes the impression can arise that the Volkswagen boss would actually prefer to be CEO of Tesla - and that almost happened once.
As the "Business Insider" reports, Diess had at least one other job offer when he switched from BMW to Volkswagen in 2015.
The manager had received a contract offer for the position as CEO of Tesla, according to the report.
This would therefore only have to be signed.
According to the report, a Volkswagen spokesman did not want to comment on the information that Diess has so far only entrusted to a few people at Volkswagen, according to "Business Insider".
Nothing is known
about the reasons why the Austrian turned down the offer from Tesla boss
Elon Musk
(49).
One thing is clear, however: In 2014/2015, Tesla was not nearly the size of the industry that the group represents today.
The market value was only a fraction of the approximately 600 billion dollars that Tesla brings on the scales today.
For a manager like Diess, it would have taken a good deal of daring to prefer the start-up from the USA to one of the largest car companies in the world.
However, Diess apparently already believed in Tesla's chances of success at that time.
As the "Business Insider" also writes, the current Volkswagen boss also acquired a stake in the US group at the time.
It is not known whether Diess holds the papers to this day.
If that were the case, however, he would have made a sensational deal: The Tesla share is currently listed at around 730 dollars, compared to April 2015, the price has increased by significantly more than 1500 percent.
cr