“You know, I’ve never spoken to Elon, although I have great admiration and respect for the company he’s built.”

CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, admits he has never said a single word to Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla. Musk previously tweeted in December that in the ‘darkest days of the Model 3 program’ he attempted to reach Cook to discuss the possibilities of Apple acquiring Tesla but “he refused to take the meeting”.

Strange, if true.

– Tesla already uses iron-phosphate for medium range cars made in our Shanghai factory.

– A monocell is electrochemically impossible, as max voltage is ~100X too low. Maybe they meant cells bonded together, like our structural battery pack?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 22, 2020

When Cook appeared on the Podcast Sway, hosted by Kara Swisher, he finally responded to Musk’s comments. But prior to that, he remained silent.

“Last year, Elon Musk said he offered to sell Tesla to Apple for 1/10 its value. And he said you wouldn’t even take a meeting with him,” Swisher said.

To which Cook replied: “You know, I’ve never spoken to Elon, although I have great admiration and respect for the company he’s built. I think Tesla has done an unbelievable job of not only establishing the lead, but keeping the lead for such a long period of time in the EV space. So I have great appreciation for them.”

Cook also decided to share a little about Apple’s future in autonomous vehicles.

“In terms of the work that we’re doing there, obviously, I’m going to be a little coy on that,” he said. “The autonomy itself is a core technology, in my view. If you sort of step back, the car, in a lot of ways, is a robot. An autonomous car is a robot. And so there’s lots of things you can do with autonomy. And we’ll see what Apple does. We investigate so many things internally. Many of them never see the light of day. I’m not saying that one will not.”

After Tesla revealed that it manufactured just over 180,000 electric vehicles and delivered nearly 185,000 the first quarter of the year, the shares have jumped.

“We are encouraged by the strong reception of the Model Y in China and are quickly progressing to full production capacity. The new Model S and Model X have also been exceptionally well received, with the new equipment installed and tested in Q1 and we are in the early stages of ramping production,” the company said in a statement.

Tesla $TSLA receives ‘Outperform’ rating after ‘dropping the mic’ with Q1 numbershttps://t.co/LPA3xewT5H by @ResidentSponge

— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 5, 2021

On Monday, Tesla was on track to surge again and hit its highest value in over a month after pre-market trading finished and its market value jumped nearly 8 per cent, adding roughly $50 billion.

“Tesla is executing impeccably. I am not surprised by the strong deliveries,” said Roth Capital Partners analyst Craig Irwin, adding that the stock is “egregiously overvalued.”

“EVs are an exciting place to be, and Tesla is the leader.”

And although details are yet to be revealed, last week US President Joe Biden announced $174 billion in spending on electric vehicle incentives and charging stations.

Also setting new record highs on Monday were the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average indexes. Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.13 per cent, to a record high 33,527.19, the S&P 500 jumped 1.44 per cent to a record 4,077.91, and Nasdaq Composite added 1.67 per cent, to 13,705.59.

A survey on Monday from the Institute for Supply Management showcased activity in the US services industry reaching its highest level on record just last month. After a jobs report was released last Friday showing 916,000 jobs added to the US economy last month, Reuters reported. This set of data reached an increase in investor sentiment.