Elon Musk predicts Ford could go bankrupt in next recession

Tesla's CEO has some doubts about Ford.

Tesla has faced its fair share of bankruptcy speculations, but the company's chief executive officer is now throwing shade at Ford, claiming the automaker could go belly up in the event of another economic recession.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk made the comments in a recent interview with Recode. Musk started down the bankruptcy path by pointing out the abysmal track record of American automakers. The executive then made the claim that Ford wouldn't be able to survive the next recession.

"And the history of car companies in America is terrible,” Musk said. "The only ones that haven't gone bankrupt are Tesla and Ford. That's it. Everyone else has gone bankrupt.”

He continued: "Making a car company successful is monumentally difficult. There have been many attempts to create a car company and they have all failed, even the ones that have had a strong base of customers, thousands of dealers, thousands of service centers, they've already spent the capital for the factories, like GM and Chrysler, still went bankrupt in the last recession. Ford and Tesla made it barely through the last recession. There's a good chance Ford doesn't make it in the next recession.”

Musk didn't elaborate on why he felt Ford could fold during the next recession.

Although anything is possible, Ford, at least on paper, doesn't appear in danger of bankruptcy. At the end of the third quarter Ford reported having $18 billion in cash on hand. Meanwhile, Tesla had $3.4 billion in cash at the conclusion of the period.