Getty Images; Alyssa Powell/Insider
When Tesla CEO Elon Musk was asked in 2011 about the Chinese electric-car maker BYD — a Warren Buffett-backed company focused on cheaper eclectic vehicles with a name short for Build Your Dreams — he simply laughed it off. "Have you seen their car?" he said with a giggle to Bloomberg TV, adding that BYD didn't "have a great product" and "the technology is not very strong."