FRANKFURT, April 13 (Reuters) - Tesla offered Herbert Diess the job of chief executive in 2015 before he left BMW for Volkswagen , Business Insider reported on Tuesday, without citing where it obtained the information.
The report said that Tesla had already sent a contract to Diess - an admirer of the U.S. electric carmaker and its boss Elon Musk - who instead joined Volkswagen as a management board member on July 1, 2015 after serving as board member in charge of production at BMW.
Diess became Volkswagen's chief executive in April 2018.
A spokesman for Volkswagen declined to comment. A spokesman for Tesla in Germany had no immediate comment.
The news comes as Volkswagen emerges as the main contender to Tesla for global electric vehicle supremacy, underscored by a raft of announcements, including a Power Day, that has provided a jolt to its share price.
Volkswagen, which earlier on Tuesday struck a wage deal with nearly a fifth of its workers, has seen its share price rise by more than half since the beginning of the year, giving it a market capitalisation of 136 billion euros ($162 billion).
($1 = 0.8412 euros)
(Reporting by Christoph Steitz; Editing by Susan Fenton)
((christoph.steitz@thomsonreuters.com; +49 30 220 133 647;))
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