Musk confirms Saudi Arabia wants to take Tesla private
29 replies, posted
Going back almost two years, the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund has approached me multiple times about taking Tesla private. They first met with me at the beginning of 2017 to express this interest because of the important need to diversify away from oil. They then held several additional meetings with me over the next year to reiterate this interest and to try to move forward with a going private transaction. Obviously, the Saudi sovereign fund has more than enough capital needed to execute on such a transaction.
Recently, after the Saudi fund bought almost 5% of Tesla stock through the public markets, they reached out to ask for another meeting. That meeting took place on July 31st. During the meeting, the Managing Director of the fund expressed regret that I had not moved forward previously on a going private transaction with them, and he strongly expressed his support for funding a going private transaction for Tesla at this time. I understood from him that no other decision makers were needed and that they were eager to proceed.
I left the July 31st meeting with no question that a deal with the Saudi sovereign fund could be closed, and that it was just a matter of getting the process moving. This is why I referred to “funding secured” in the August 7th announcement.
Following the August 7th announcement, I have continued to communicate with the Managing Director of the Saudi fund. He has expressed support for proceeding subject to financial and other due diligence and their internal review process for obtaining approvals. He has also asked for additional details on how the company would be taken private, including any required percentages and any regulatory requirements
Update on Taking Tesla Private | Tesla
nope don't do it musk.
What sensitive technology?
Currently Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund holds 5% of Tesla's shares.
All those open source patents!
I'd much rather starve in debters-prison than associate myself in any way with that theocratic shithole, but that's just me.
Isn't it kind of counter-intuitive for an electric vehicle company to take direct investment from a government which supports all of its terrorist-funding activity via oil?
they're designing chips, software to run self driving cars, probably a boatload of trade secrets behind their battery packs, there's seriously stuff at tesla that should probably be covered by technology transfer laws if we weren't so paralyzed to do something about it.
Everything Tesla does is patented. All it takes is someone to look up the patents online and see how they do things. The chips are probably made in China. What goes into them is in no way a secret.
Good call. Countries whos economies are reliant on a single natural resource tend to swing wildly
that's kind of why trade secrets are supposed to stay secret. Anyway its not always hard to hide stuff, your competition might get close but there's a million little things you do that aren't easily noticable that affect the final product as there are many ways to do a specific operation, but some are better than others. Also there's not always thousands involved in a particular step, maybe dozens or less that actually perform a specific step or operate a particular piece of equipment
there's also the issue that patents put stuff out into public domain that you might not want because others can copy it eventually whereas trade secrets keep things hidden and your competition has to actually take the time to reverse engineer your product.
Renewable energy was the world's best chance at leaving SA in the dust and cutting the need for their existence in the market place.
Now we're doing the exact same fucking this that happened with oil.
Way to support dictatorial regimes and ultimately terrorism, musk.
Not sure how I feel about this
Ultimately it probably wouldn't give the Saudis majority control since it's not a simple buyout.
Even so, it worries me. Going private could only be a positive thing, I thought, but this stipulation gives me some pause.
Here's the funds home page:
https://www.pif.gov.sa/en/Pages/default.aspx
Saudi Vision 2030
I mean.. it's a smart investment from Saudis perspective. And going private is a smart move from Tesla's perspective... I just feel a bit icky with Saudi money since the country still takes part in some shitty things. I feel like Saudi Arabia is trying hard to secure a prosperous future but is being held back by their extremist actions.
I like the idea of Saudi Arabia being a strong, western-leaning nation in the middle East, but they got a lot of work to do in terms of human rights at the very least before they get to where they need to be.
I hope Saudi young leaders realize they need to let go of the past to exceed in the future, and that one day the country is a shining example in the region.
Musk is far too busy trying to finesse Azealia Banks into a threesome to worry about insignificant details like this.
I'm not a big fan of the Saudis either. If the structure of it leaves Tesla relatively the same with Musk being the largest shareholder still I'm all for it. If the structure of the deal ends up changing things a lot, and giving the Saudis more control than Musk then I'm probably going to be a big fan of it.
It sounds like the Saudi PIF won't be able to to change anything since they won't have a controlling share. Elon and friends still retain their shares plus all the current public shareholders who chose to ride or die into Private ownership. Saudi won't be able to to do anything drastic. Maybe they'll get leverage/first dibs on Tesla expanding into the region/infrastructure projects. Who knows.
If you look on the PIF's Wikipedia page, all of their investments are focused on betterment of their nation and other nations. Most of them being investments in tech and foreign infrastructures. They've got a few military based contracts but it seems like it was meant to create jobs and open ended bussiness agreements for the Saudis as a nation to take advantage of.
Saudi Arabia is a pretty despicable nation, but they are making some headway in the human rights category, and it seems like their upcoming leadership is far more moderate than their current set. I think its reasonable to be apprehensive but the PIF investing might end being a good thing 10 or 20 years from now.
Banks has a history of making bold and sometimes unverified claims. In 2016, she slammed Beyoncé on Twitter for allegedly stealing from other artists.
Banks's Twitter account was deactivated in June after she graphically insulted with Monet X Change, a competitor on the most recent season of RuPaul's Drag Race. Earlier this year, she started a GoFundMe asking for help to fund a lawsuit against actor Russell Crowe, who she claimed spit on her, choked her, and called her the N-word at a party in 2016.
"I could run Tesla better than he does," Banks said of Musk on Monday to Business Insider.
"They're so pitiful," she added. "And it's honestly stupid of them to think another performative 'angry/crazy black girl hit piece' will do anything to bring me down."
Hmmm..
He's fucked if that's true. Elon Musk really needs to learn to speak to lawyers, as he's done some exceptionally stupid stuff in recent months.
And following the purchase:
Tesla Halts All Sales of Cars In Canada.
Watch Musk put out a tweet with a picture of a Tesla flying into the CN tower.
"The current diplomatic tensions between The Tesla of Saudi Arabia and Canada will not affect supercharging stations in Canada."
This talks about and explains the fragility of the area and why a strong oppressive government sponsoring rebels is the most common form of government here (spoiler: Ataturk):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1FaOodAZHQ
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