Elon Musk is moving forward with his plan to take Tesla private.
Musk is going full steam ahead and working with financial advisors Silver Lake and Goldman Sachs as well as receiving legal advice from law firms Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and Munger, Tolles & Olson. Reuters reported that Silver Lake had not been retained as a financial advisor but was offering assistance to Musk, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Musk announced last week on Twitter and on Tesla’s website that he was considering taking automaker Tesla private and had secured the funding to do so. He later clarified that the funding he referred to was from the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund, which approached Musk with the proposal to de-list the company as early as two years ago, though no formal agreement has been made. Musk said the fund had “more than enough capital” for such a deal, but The Wall Street Journal pointed out that the fund is having difficulty financing its existing commitments.
The SEC is looking into whether Musk’s initial announcement broke a rule preventing public companies from announcing such major financial plans if they don’t intend to see them through, don’t have financing secured, or are blatantly trying to manipulate the stock price. Their investigation is part of a larger probe into the information Musk provides on Twitter, including sales targets and other goals. Musk said his decision to announce his negotiations publicly was in the interest of all investors, as it wouldn’t have been fair to only tell the largest share holders.
