Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, is known for his online presence and engagement on social media platforms. Recently, he spoke to an Indian engineer who recalled how Tesla neared bankruptcy back in Christmas 2008. 

The individual, Pranay Pathole, noted “On Christmas eve 2008, Tesla funding round completed, Tesla was literally a few days from bankruptcy, @elonmusk had to put in all his money & assets. He had to borrow money from friends to pay rent.” He further thanked Musk for never giving up, despite it being a difficult year. 

To this, Musk replied, “That was a crazy tough year. Tesla financing closed at 6pm Christmas Eve – last hour of the last day possible. Payroll would otherwise have bounced two days after Christmas.” 

At present, Tesla is doing great even after Musk’s notable move of dumping the company shares. The company has also expanded to make other products. Recently, Musk was seen online promoting the Tesla whistle. The world’s richest man found himself on the cover of TIME Magazine in 2021, and as per his calculations, will be paying a whopping $11 billion – the highest any American has historically paid – in taxes this year. 

Also Read | Elon Musk announces Tesla will accept Dogecoin, spiking the crypto

Understandably, Musk’s grit did not let Tesla sink. However, the inventor has also kept his acquaintance with Pathole afloat. This is not the first time the two have spoken on Twitter. Speaking of Musk’s internship days, Pathole said, “When @elonmusk was 18 he did an internship at Nova Scotia bank. It was over there where he realized that money is low bandwidth and you don’t need huge infrastructure resources to online transfer money from one bank to another. This knowledge set him up on course to start X.com”.

Also Read | What are Elon Musk’s top tweets in 2021?

Musk verified this, saying it was great working for Peter Nicholson. They usually exchanged maths riddles and Musk figured out an arbitrage opportunity for the bank, to the tune of billions of dollars. He jokingly concluded his declaration saying that he expected at least a raise by $1 every hour, but his hopes were dashed.