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Tesla Inc. "blew money like crazy" during the ramp-up of its model 3 and nearly lost it earlier this year, Elon Musk said Sunday.
In an interview broadcast Sunday night on "Axios on HBO," the general manager of Tesla said the electric car manufacturer was about to die "in single-digit weeks."
"Tesla has really faced a serious death threat because of the Model 3 ramp."
"The company was bleeding money crazy, and if we did not fix it in a very short time, we would die. And it was extremely difficult to solve them, "said Musk.
Earlier this year, Musk described "the hell of production" as Tesla increased production to build 5,000 Model 3 sedans a week at the end of June, and said he was sleeping in the factory.
Musk admitted in Sunday's interview that he had been severely tested. "People should not work so hard," he said of his work 22 hours a day, seven days a week. "It's very painful."
"It hurts my brain and my heart," said Musk. "It hurts, it's not recommended to anyone, I just did it because if I did not do it … there was a good chance Tesla would die.
At the end of October, Tesla published an unexpected quarterly profit, and earlier this month, Musk said Tesla was no longer going to "face death" and its cash flow would be probably positive for all quarters ahead.
At another point in the Sunday interview, Musk said that there was a 70% chance that he will one day bring a SpaceX rocket to Mars, despite the high risk. "Your probability of dying on Mars is much higher than the Earth," he said. "It's going to be hard," but "there are a lot of people climbing the mountains. People are dying all the time on Mount Everest. They like to do it for the challenge. "
Tesla shares
TSLA, -3.65%
are up about 4.6% since the beginning of the year, compared to the S & P 500
SPX, -0.66%
Loss of 1.5%.
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