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Taking Tesla Private

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191–200 of 290 posts

Re: Taking Tesla Private

#191

Would an Apple buyout be considered them going private if they are kept as a separate entity? It’s the only one with enough money to buy them that I can think off.

Apple could do it with cash, but a lot of others could do it with some form of financing. A leveraged buyout.

[deleted]

Re: Taking Tesla Private

#192
post #23

This would have a side-effect of making all the short-sellers lose, which would be quite satisfactory to Musk. Until Tesla's economics become obvious to all in the market, this is probably the best decision; this allows them to be more focused on the long run.

Part of me wonders if it isn't a side-effect, but the goal: put the squeezin' on the shorts. But, man, if that tin-foil hat theory is true, Musk better have someone in the wings at least pretending to want to finance this lest the SEC come a-knockin'. Normally, I'd just pass that off as "haha, wouldn't that be funny!", but given some of Musk's tweets lately, there's still a little part of me that entertains the idea as plausible.

Re: Taking Tesla Private

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The free market of automobile manufacturing in which the USA has propped up both GM and Ford, and in the past Chrysler? The one in which the Japanese government is carefully intertwined with their automotive industry? The government is a customer of space x but they still compete against other companies for that business.

Tesla has also received a substantial amount of government support, including state and federal EV rebates for buyers of its cars (roughly $300 million), an extremely large handout from the state of Nevada ($1.3 billion), a large handout from New York ($1 billion), handouts from US Government ($500 million), carbon credits ($520 billion as of 2015). Collectively, Tesla's government support actually exceeds the govern…

>Tesla has also received a substantial amount of government support

Yes, the message here is almost all large industries in all countries receive substantial government support.

The amount of goverment subsidy for fossil fuels that normal cars run on, for instance, is much higher than for renewables.

Re: Taking Tesla Private

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In which "free" market are you "prohibited" from selling your product directly to customers? [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_US_dealership_disputes

Liquor.

In many US states, liquor sale is not a free market.

Re: Taking Tesla Private

#195
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So there's the real story. Who is this financer (or group) with ~40 billion in capital that is willing to bet long on Tesla? That's really interesting to me, if Musk is being truthful here.

Totally, totally random thought, but I figured I'd record it, even though it doesn't seem to make sense. Bezos?

I highly doubt it. For starters his wealth isn't liquid enough. He would need to give up shareholder control of Amazon or take on huge debt with his control of Amazon as collateral.

Re: Taking Tesla Private

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be true, but the stability comes from it being privately held -- the SpaceX stock doesn't swing wildly every time some news about their competition with Boeing is released.

Boeing is publicly traded under the ticker BA...

I meant the SpaceX stock doesn't swing wildly every time news like this comes out:

https://www.investopedia.com/news/spacex-will-fly-astronauts...

Or this:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/07/nasa-commercial-crew...

(I clarified my original comment)

Re: Taking Tesla Private

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The free market of automobile manufacturing in which the USA has propped up both GM and Ford, and in the past Chrysler? The one in which the Japanese government is carefully intertwined with their automotive industry? The government is a customer of space x but they still compete against other companies for that business.

Tesla has also received a substantial amount of government support, including state and federal EV rebates for buyers of its cars (roughly $300 million), an extremely large handout from the state of Nevada ($1.3 billion), a large handout from New York ($1 billion), handouts from US Government ($500 million), carbon credits ($520 billion as of 2015). Collectively, Tesla's government support actually exceeds the govern…

False. The US government lost over $11 billion on the GM bailout.

https://www.thebalance.com/auto-industry-bailout-gm-ford-chr...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-gm-treasury-idUSBRE...

Re: Taking Tesla Private

#198

Not sure I agree with the dupe-flag. The other post was about the Saudi deal and then got changed. So the discussion there is fragmented.

You're right that it's not a precise dupe, but the topics are almost identical and we shouldn't have two of these on the front page at the same time. So we have to decide which one.

The other article is more substantive, since it's based on at least some facts, and the thread is correspondingly better. This one, by contrast, is really just an announcement of a possible future announcement. So it seems clear the first URL should win. If and when they actually take steps to go private, there will certainly be much discussion on HN.

Re: Taking Tesla Private

#200
post #97

I would like to make a prediction: the Saudi Royal Family is the funding source. There are very few banks that could back this financially, and they have all said they are not behind it. The only source of this much money and secrecy is the House of Saud. They apparently also snapped up to 5% of public shares, and have expressed lots of interest in investing in the "new" economy.

Good way for them to hedge against a threat to their primary source of income.
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