"Get lost! My nickname in the underworld is '500 million in consulting fees'!"
"What? Didn't you say the consulting fee was five million? When did the price increase?"
"Oh ho, so you knew all along. You were just pretending to be clueless."
"Hehe, Lin, you at least have shares in Tesla, which is practically your own business, so you don't need to charge consulting fees, right?"
"Come on, I only have the right to dividends on that 8% of the shares, otherwise you wouldn't have sold it to me in the first place."
Musk was taken aback. Indeed, he wouldn't have sold the shares if Lin Chen hadn't only wanted the dividend rights. After all, he's a very controlling person. If Tesla's development didn't require a lot of money, he wouldn't have sold the shares time and time again.
Fortunately, he still has the final say in Tesla's development for now.
"Ahem, Lin, Tesla is short of money right now, isn't it? If they had the money, they would have given it to us."
Lin Chen looked at him with a half-smile.
"Then why don't you sell me some more shares?"
“That won’t do. I only have 20% of the shares left, and I can’t reduce it any further.”
"So you're planning to get something for nothing from me?"
"Actually, it can't be called freeloading. It's a win-win situation for us, right? After all, if Tesla goes bankrupt, your initial investment of 140 million US dollars will be lost."
Upon hearing this, Lin Chen turned to An Rou and said.
"Forget it, let's go. Consider this investment a loss."
After saying that, he stood up and prepared to leave.
Musk panicked. This wouldn't do. If Lin Chen really left, he would have nowhere to attract investment.
He has traveled to every place he could to attract investment, but he hasn't managed to secure a single penny.
Trump later told him that it was because those bigwigs in the oil industry had spoken up that no one dared to invest in Tesla.
Furthermore, Tesla's sales are indeed very poor. To put it bluntly, even the old man's cars sold in China are better than Tesla's current sales.
Therefore, Lin Chen was one of the few people he could turn to for help.
Furthermore, Trump told Musk that Lin Chen was very rich! Extremely rich!
Musk immediately stood up and grabbed Lin Chen.
"Don't rush, Lin, let's talk this over properly."
"What's the point of talking? You're starting to morally blackmail me. I came here with good intentions to invest, but now I'm stuck with this mess? Well, I guess I'll just consider myself unlucky."
"No, no, no, that's not what I meant. So, Lin, how many shares do you want to acquire?"
Hearing this, Lin Chen stopped rushing to leave.
"The more the better, of course. Actually, I am very optimistic about Tesla, otherwise I wouldn't have invested so much money back then."
"I can only sell a maximum of two percent of the shares."
"What's the use of two percent? Twelve percent would be more like it."
"Impossible, absolutely impossible. Twelve percent? Wouldn't that mean I'd be working for you?"
The situation became tense for a time.
At this moment, Lin Chen's eyes turned to the table.
"Actually, it's not impossible not to have shares."
"Oh? You're willing to lend me money for free?"
"Get out of here, all you ever do is dream about eating shit."
"Then what do you mean by that?"
"How about this, I'm planning to start an electric car brand in China. If you can provide me with some technical guidance, then I'll consider this money as a technical guidance fee for Tesla."
"This is not appropriate. China is the most important sales region in Tesla's future plans."
"I never said I wanted Tesla's operating rights in China. I'm planning to create a completely new brand with an exterior design that's completely different from Tesla's. The only difference is that the three core electric systems will be similar to Tesla's."
"this……"
Musk hesitated, because if Lin Chen said that, it wasn't entirely unacceptable.
As far as he knows, besides Tesla, other manufacturers are also researching electric vehicle platforms, and it is expected that new electric vehicle brands will emerge in another year or two.
Lin Chen can simply acquire those smaller brands and then expand into China without any problems.
Although he boasted that Tesla's electric drive system was the best, consumers cared about the opposite when buying a car: appearance, driving experience, and even refrigerators and TVs took priority over the electric drive system.
He is not Sister Li.
But that's the market.
Moreover, without Lin Chen's investment, Tesla might not have survived to that point. Under pressure from the board of directors, Lin Chen might have simply acquired the then-worthless Tesla.
However, Musk never expected this.
Even without Lin Chen's help, he could have weathered this crisis and become the world's richest man in the future.
Unfortunately, Lin Chen was a transmigrator with the ability to foresee the future.
"Lin, you know this will have a significant impact on Tesla's strategic deployment, so how much money are you prepared to invest?"
How much do you need?
"At least 1 billion US dollars!"
"Why don't you just rob someone? $1 billion for a single electric drive system? And I'm a shareholder myself?"
"Didn't you ask me how much I need?"
Lin Chen was speechless.
"300 million, after all, the idea I'm about to come up with is worth 700 million!"
"Huh? Wasn't it supposed to be 500 million for the consulting fee?"
"So what if I raise prices!"
"...Fine, you decide."
Musk had his secretary draft an agreement, while Lin Chen called Ye Qian and asked her to come and check it.
After reviewing the document, Ye Qian nodded to Lin Chen, and Lin Chen then signed the technical consulting agreement.
The contents of the agreement are roughly as follows.
Lin Chen paid 300 million yuan in technology usage fees.
Tesla will share all of its technology with Lin Chen's electric vehicle brand company over the next five years and will provide free training and guidance to Lin Chen's technical staff.
However, Lin Chen's electric vehicle brand will only be allowed to be sold in China for the next five years, and Tesla will not be allowed to enter the Chinese market for the next five years either.
After the agreement was signed, Musk couldn't wait to ask.
"Lin, now you can tell me your idea, right?"
"Actually, Lao Ma, you were wrong from the start. The competitive advantage of electric cars is not their acceleration from 0 to 100 km/h, but their fuel consumption!"
"Fuel consumption? Where does an electric car get fuel..."
Before he could finish speaking, Musk's eyes widened.
"You mean, the operating costs of a tram?"
"That's right! That's the most attractive thing about electric cars. You spend so much money to shorten the 0-100 km/h acceleration to two seconds, but what's the point? Consumers will just shout 'Wow, that's awesome!' but they won't open their wallets."
Because consumers know very well that they might drive the car until it's scrapped and still not be able to drive it that fast.
Therefore, what Tesla really needs to develop is a family car around $40,000, with ample space and low operating costs. Of course, if you sell it for $30,000, you'll probably sell even more cars, but that also involves R&D costs and charging station costs, so the profit margin might not be as high.
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