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Elon Musk Says Investors Convinced Him Tesla Should Stay Public (washingtonpost.com)
Weeks after Tesla CEO Elon Musk expressed his intentions to take his company private, on late Friday, he said investors have convinced him that he shouldn't take the company private, so the firm will remain on the public stock markets. From a report: The eccentric and sometimes erratic CEO said in a statement late Friday that he made the decision based on feedback from shareholders, including institutional investors, who said they have internal rules limiting how much they can sink into a private company. Musk met with the electric car and solar panel company's board on Thursday to tell them he wanted to stay public and the board agreed, according to the statement. In a blog post, Mr. Musk shared the rationale behind his decision, to which he arrived after speaking with investors, both large and small, banks and others. He said: Given the feedback I've received, it's apparent that most of Tesla's existing shareholders believe we are better off as a public company. Additionally, a number of institutional shareholders have explained that they have internal compliance issues that limit how much they can invest in a private company. There is also no proven path for most retail investors to own shares if we were private. Although the majority of shareholders I spoke to said they would remain with Tesla if we went private, the sentiment, in a nutshell, was "please don't do this."
I knew the process of going private would be challenging, but it's clear that it would be even more time-consuming and distracting than initially anticipated. This is a problem because we absolutely must stay focused on ramping Model 3 and becoming profitable. We will not achieve our mission of advancing sustainable energy unless we are also financially sustainable. That said, my belief that there is more than enough funding to take Tesla private was reinforced during this process.
I knew the process of going private would be challenging, but it's clear that it would be even more time-consuming and distracting than initially anticipated. This is a problem because we absolutely must stay focused on ramping Model 3 and becoming profitable. We will not achieve our mission of advancing sustainable energy unless we are also financially sustainable. That said, my belief that there is more than enough funding to take Tesla private was reinforced during this process.
You be sure and tell them that down at the police station...
I'm sure the persuasiveness of Cathy Wood of ARK on CNBC today convinced Musk and the board that Tesla is worth $4K a share and should stay public. Even to a six year old it's plain Musk is a conman and fraud.
This is a metaphor for musks incompetence.
Funding Secured! $420 per share! Done deal!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
There is a name for this kind of action — market manipulation.
Get ready to enjoy the show when SEC deal with him.
Notice Musk's infamous tweet was done during trading hours while this was released after market close Friday. Even though the decision, indicated by the press release, was made the day before. Musk and the board are scum. There's no excuse now for the SEC not to step in as it's apparent there wasn't even a hint of a go private deal except in Musk's drug-addled mind. If the SEC doesn't take action they are a bunch of empty suits. That includes a referral to the DoJ - Musk deserves prison time.
So, is Musk's way of saying if he tried to take Tesla private the board would've ousted him?
He is being told to let go and he's letting go.
Tesla needs a serious amount of fresh money to overcome losses, stalling demand, talent loss and the incoming high and low cost competition.
The Tony Stark wannabe attention whore isn't the answer, an adult manager is, if Tesla is to have a good chance of a turnaround.
It shedding the crazy buy at any price stock fan club is another.
But the most important will be hiring people who know how to make cars, and hope they can reverse the damage from Team Amateur.
Suspect Also confirmed with lawyers who will supervise tweets among other public assertions going forward.
On the other hand, if he gets away with it, he should be awarded for such epic trolling of the market. Bravo, sir. Well played, you filthy, filthy troll.
Musk is addled by Ambien. The drug's side effects are clearly showing. He is irrational and eratic and has been for a while now.
There was a time I respected him, he completely lost that respect when he attacked one of the brave cave divers in Thailand, his stock manipulations with this private/no private business just add to this dislike.
It's time the Telsa board hand him his golden flamethrower, show him to the door with his belongings in carboard boxes, and under the leadership of a professional, do good things without Musk at the helm.
Orationem pulchram non habens, scribo ista linea in lingua Latina
Why is he listening to shareholders if the very reason he wanted to take the company private was to avoid having to deal with shareholders? It clearly makes no sense and it's apparent that he didn't have the funding to take it private.
Action needs to be taken here. You can't have CEOs making random untrue statements that would greatly influence the share price and then lying to cover up the fact that the statement was patently false.
You should have sold at 320. Tesla is a liability even at $4.20. And the free ride is gone, the competition both at the top and at the bottom has come and is better.
You should have sold at 320. Tesla is a liability even at $4.20. And the free ride is gone, the competition both at the top and at the bottom has come and is better.
As you wrote that, Tesla had closed at $322.
Pray, why do you think that selling at $320 would have been a good idea?
Musk is fine with shareholders. What he has a problem with is short sellers betting against the company.
Because he does not control enough votes, share holders will have to vote for the buyout to be accepted.
Flinging off-the-cuff ideas onto a public forum is pretty much fine for your average person. At worst, they may embarrass themselves. For an officer of a company, this is at best irresponsible, and at worst criminal.
Musk is already facing lawsuits due to his tweets. Now that he is apparently not taking Tesla private, he may be really screwed. He never did due diligence, he never did have the funding ("compliance issues"), so his tweets look even more deliberately manipulative.
At best, it is likely that he (or Tesla) will have to pay some substantial judgments to make those lawsuits go away. At worst, he personally could very well be facing criminal prosecution and jail time. Stupid, stupid mistake.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
It all boils down to one thing: a black-box extrapolation of Tesla's existing capital and burn rate indicates that they will need additional funding.
Does that take into account 5000-6000 model 3's being sold per week? as opposed to 2000-3000 per week in Q2 ? that difference means 3000*40000 = 120m$ per week cash flow, half a billion per month... And I am sure the burn rate is a lot lower now that the production is up to speed.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Then we got a half assed going private announcement and now the subsequent "nah we're cool the way we are" announcement. It's all damage limitation.
Musk had better learn to keep his mouth shut, or at least run tweets past the corporate lawyer or he'll end up being forced out of his own company.
Musk will be pursuing taking Tesla private on the down-low. Oligarchs don't listen to shareholders, so the next time his stock get shorted, Musk will be ready.
The plan was to go private with around 3/4ths of the current shareholders, thus capping the cost and minimizing how much of a controlling stake the Saudis would have gotten. Institutional investors control most of Tesla's stock. If there's no buy-in from the institutional investors, such a plan is impossible. Musk only owns about a fifth of Tesla; he can propose whatever he wants, in association with whoever he wants, but that doesn't mean it's going to happen.
The chloride owes the sodium money.
I like how a day or so ago most everyone said everything pointed to Tesla not going private... and suddenly stories start popping up like: "Unnamed Tesla employee reports how terrible the factory is" "Unnamed female Tesla employee tells of sexism in company" etc etc etc.
Of course, there are more than two choices, invest to win if it goges up, invest to win if it goes down, or seeing that the company is too volatile to know if it is going to go up *or* down reliably to bother.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I wonder what that series of meetings was like...Large Investor A asks him to keep the gravy train rolling in exchange for positive coverage by their investment bankers?
One thing I wonder about how this time period in history will be viewed is what role Twitter and other social media played overall. It's one thing to say you're privatizing your company to another CEO golf buddy, but a whole other one to tell the world and have investors freak out. Same thing with the President -- we've never had a direct line plugged into people's brains like this before that lets them fire off random thoughts.
Also, why is Musk such a crazy micromanager? I've worked for large companies my whole career and CEOs there do nothing but get hauled around in corporate aircraft and vehicles, golf, give the occasional speech or conference call, attend board meetings for the other companies they're on the boards of, etc. They've delegated everything to subordinates...not Elon Musk!
For the first pass yield, I'm actually a bit unsure. When I buy a new car, there's a decent chance that some minor thing isn't right, and the dealer does a quick fix. It may be that first-pass quality standard could be different, as the traditional car makers are accustomed to purchasers not noticing or at worst the dealer can take care of little issues pre sales. Tesla *claims* the problems are minor and sound like the sort of stuff I've seen in cars on the lot from other vendors. In other words, that metric *might* have some more nuance behind it. It might be a higher standard or it might highlight one of the challenges of not having a dealer network.
Other than that, I see demand crashing after the pent up demand is done and I'm not particularly bullish on them. I want to like the futurist sensibilities, but there's a consistent history of making claims that don't pan out in practice.
Of course, maybe I'd be a bit more positive if they actually competently replied to the first-pass yield concern with a fleshed out reply. My guess not being outright said by Tesla suggests I'm wrong, but I still wonder if it is the case.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
LSD is the last thing an obsessive workaholic would ever touch; it lasts all day and you can't focus on anything.
How have you not heard of microdosing?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Actually, there was no such plan, and there was no agreement from anyone to provide the funding for it. Even the board didn't know why Musk shot out that tweet, and scrambled to come up with a way to stuff it under the carpet.
From the facts that are known this much is certain:
In other words, this "Tesla going private" "plan" was just, well, let's be kind here, an irresponsible act of a stressed out manager. To pretend it had some basis in reality is ridiculous.
I wouldn't do short selling myself, but it is a natural feature of the way joint-stock corporations and open markets for the shares thereof work. If you "have a problem with short seller" you should not take your firm public.
The SEC has a name for a privately held corporation with 4000 shareholders that trade their shares: a public corporation. That's why Microsoft had to go public in a hurry and to its majority stockholders disadvantage back in 1986: too many people were trying to trade their private shares.
COGM and SG&A produces a loss of every car built. That's before any interest, R&D, etc. SG&A (sales and administrative costs related to sales) have been a consistent 20% of revenue. It doesn't scale like you say. If you look at the last 4 quarters, you'll find it consistently 20%, and as model 3 sales went from 0 to 5000 per week, their losses per car were amazingly consistent.
Additionally, your math is wrong. You are assuming they will make $40K per car they build; right now, on a COGM and SG&A basis, they lose $3200 per car. Unless they somehow magically slash SG&A in half (which they never have done, it's been consistently 18% to 22% of revenue over the last 5 years), the extra production means a loss - before R&D, interest, and all other expenses - of $9,600,000 per week.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Ignoring the other trolling posts, and only responding to this non-trolling post :) You're absolutely correct (and there's also accredited investor restrictions). However, there are a number of ways to work around this to varying degrees, such as funds being among the owners of a private corporation (although there may be limits to how much of the fund can be comprised of one company), unlisted public companies owning a stake of a private corporation, etc.
The chloride owes the sodium money.
So - funding NOT secured?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
One or the other is going to happen and I believe it's going to be the former. Securities fraud charges are coming to Musk and he's going to "take a leave of absence" even though the press release makes it seem like the board is behind him. Musk wanted to keep this "going private" charade alive but the board finally grew a pair and made him it shut it down.
Apparently his August 7th tweet needed rework - just like his cars! Like a Starbucks bathroom, it's just better that Tesla stays public.
I would encourage Musk to delete his Twitter account. Or at least arrange it so that anything he posts to it doesn't go live for 24 hours, and ideally not until it has been vetted by an attorney.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
She's permabanned from Twitter, if that gives you any idea; that's not easy to achieve.
You're shitting me. It's fucking trivial to achieve. Just tweet anything coming out of California but change the word 'white' to 'black' or 'jew'. Instant fucking ban.
I find it interesting how Pedo Musk (if he can attribute that to someone without a shred of evidence, so can I -- and the fact that he thought to do suggests to me that maybe "pedo" is on his mind a lot, perhaps because he's worried if his laptop disks are properly encrypted?) worded part of this:
By saying "I knew" he's taking credit for the fact that he was so smart as to know it would be challenging (which was actually obvious to analysts who published articles within an hour of his tweet). But when it comes to discovering that it was more challenging than he anticipated, he disowns that (it just now "clear").
He won't take responsibility here (as he rarely does). If he took responsibility for his FU, he would have shown ownership by writing:
It appears he had not discussed the concept with the board in any detail or as anymore than an abstract thought before his surprise announcement - so it was HE who failed to correctly anticipate the difficulty, not some amorphous unknown entity.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading