Almost a year ago, Robin Lewis wrote on Forbes that “Apple should think big and buy Tesla” and everyone thought he was just crazy. A series of articles followed rejecting his claim that Apple should acquire Tesla in the same way Google acquired Nest in order to leverage the Internet of Things eco-system. But then, there was a plot-twist: 2 to be exact. First, Apple is apparently developing some stealth project in the electric car space, and second and most importantly: not one but TWO shareholders pressed Tim Cook about buying Tesla at the Apple shareholder meeting in Cupertino 2 months ago.

Thus the question arises: not whether Apple should buy Tesla, but whether Apple will buy Tesla. My answer is both yes AND no, because, although Tesla will remain it’s own indpendent and publicly traded company, Tesla will indeed cede their automobile technology and side of the business to Apple.

Here is how I think it will play out:

#1. Apple becomes the first trillion dollar company.

Apple has often been the target of activist investors such as David Einhorn and Carl Icahn, both pushing for stock buybacks and producing “the next bing thing”. After both of those things however, Carl Icahn specifically has not been entirely satifised and has not yet liquidated his position in the company, which is unusual since he has basically gotten what he wanted. Instead, one of the most respected names of Wall Street and one of the most successfull investors of all time, has been not only speaking positively about Tim Cook (rare because Carl Icahn seldomly approves of CEOs) but has also embarked on a mission to prove to the Street that Apple is worth $1.2 Trillion. Seriously, what’s up with that?

The stock however has been pushing higher and higher, even replacing AT&T on the Dow! And although Carl Icahn has a financial interest in Apple gaining even more value, pushing for a trillion dollar valuation is a risky move that’s unecessary considering he has made huge margins on the stock buyback and the buzz after the Apple Watch. The only reason why he would engage with this thesis is if he knows something that the rest of the Street doesn’t know, something that Tim Cook shared with him as a major shareholder of Apple during one of the many dinners they have had together. What could that be?

#2. Tesla progressively turns into a utilities and energy company

A few months ago, as we have grown accustomed to, Tesla reported losses. Specifically, Elon Musk claimed much of the issue lied in disappointing sales and lack of infrastructure in China, which is why he fired about 30% of his staff in China. The underperformance brought up the intersting issue of whether, regardless of the quality and value of the Tesla car, the world is ready for it in terms of infrastructure. After all, Tesla’s are all the rage with dot-com millionaires in Silicon Valley, where they can park it and charge it almost anywhere, but do Europeans and Asians really care?

The more troubling trend of the auto sector as a whole is the ridesharing sector, as companies like Uber pull in money from presitigious funds and investment banks to a $50 billion valuation. The ridesharing sector is just eating away from the auto industry as millenials systematically opt for public transportation and ridesharing as opposed to buying cars. The negative impact of the millenial consumer trends will only be exarcebated as time passes by, and Tesla is keenly aware of that. If milennials and the emerging world are not willing to pay for a car to begin with, they are even less likely to purchase a high-end Tesla.

Elon Musk however is smart, and I am big fan of him because he is very strategic. This is why I have noticed just how much Tesla has shifted its major resources away from the car and more towards the technology behind, like the batteries. At the end of the day, that’s the real value of Tesla: it’s energy technology. Much like other tech giants in the private sector, Tesla is years if not decades ahead of governments and traditional business in terms of its proprietary techonlogy. That’s the significance of the Giga factory! It’s Tesla’s first step at turning into a utility company, whose sophisticated infrastructure and innovative technology will leap forward in the energy industry and the electricity space.

As the pop of the tech bubble looms over all tech companies, as ridesharing is dispossessing the auto industry of millenials and the consumers of the future, as infrastructure becomes the necessary precondition to the future of energy, Tesla will slowly shed its skin in the car space to march forward as a lean organism and the leader of the future of elecricity and batteries.

#3. Google’s self-driving car becomes a reality

Google does a lot of crazy things: they build awesome technology that regardless of its awesomeness it fails to capture a sizeable market. Example? Google Glass…yep…I just went there. But they are also behind some of the greatest tech beyond just search engine: YouTube, Android, Nest, data mining algorithms, data processing infrastructure, and most importantly Google Maps!

Google Maps is at the core of most GPS technology, which is what makes Google the perfect fit to roll out the self-driving car: if we all start using self-driving cars by Google, then the cars will fetch their coordinates and routes from Google Maps, thereby giving Google a ton of data about your travel habits! Google at its core is a data company that makes information publicly available in order to extract user behavioral singature. This is the reason as to why Google’s most successful investments have been in new platforms to discover and access information (search, video, browser and etcetera), and the self-driving car in its own way the next frontier for data, because location and traveling patters enable the observer to build a “mosaic” of a person (check out the Supreme Court’s explaination of mosaic theory)

The self-driving car is also another business model that eats away at the auto-industry, as it’s closer to a the public trasportation platform of the future. That’s the way Google is selling it to the government: not a the new form of private driving (yet), but as the new platform for public transportation. Because it’s public, government approval is necessary, but as the technology gets better and the libbying persists I am confident Google will get the self-driving car approved; after all, even Elon Musk says self-driving cars are happening.

#4. Tesla sells its car technology to both Google and Apple

This is straightforward. Google needs great marketing arguments to get the self-driving car approved, the eco-friendliness of Tesla helps with that mission. Tesla in return gets a giant mass producing low-level Teslas that need Tesla’s infrastructure to operate and charge, which is how Elon Musk makes money.

Apple buys the high-end and luxury vehicle, because they are all about that high-end stuff and are not afraid to charge higher to fewer customers, unlike Google. They do the same thing with the Mac vs Google Chromebook, with the iPhone and the Android, and so on. They buy Tesla’s high end components and stucture, and implement their own slick design and marketing strategy. That’s why Apple needs a lot of cash, to acquire the vast majority of Tesla’s car technology, since Google doesn’t have nearly as much capital to invest in this.

By selling off its car business and tech to two tech giants, Tesla benefits by creating a huge demand for their grid, batteries, and elecricity technology, as well as huge amounts of capital to expand very quickly in all 3 of those areas. That’s what Elon Musk actually cares about as the best applied engineer in the world: energy.

What will the world look like if this happens?

Apple becomes a trillion dollar company, that gets all up on that Internet of Things eco-system by selling you the iPhone, Beats, Mac, ApplePay (maybe), AppleTV, iWatch (and iHealthcare which is really what the wearable is about), and the iTesla!

Google remains a giant, also gets all up on your Internet of Things eco-system by selling you Google Search, YouTube, Nest, Chrome Browser, Android, and the Google Car!

Tesla just catches all other energy companies off guard, strategically to prevent them (especially oil companies) from obstructing and blocking this change. Tesla thus successfully dethrones utilities companies by using 10x technology to replace them, becoming what the name Tesla suggests it should be: teh dominant player in elecricity.

One of my roomates thinks this is crazy, but the one thing that I will agree with him on is that, regardless of whether this happens or not, this plot would make for a great movie XD