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Taking Tesla Private

tesla.com

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Re: Taking Tesla Private

#201

Post by gamblor956 »

Fuckyourself wrote: post #77
mikeryan wrote: post #27

In the Tesla case I feel that the shareholder concerns are pretty valid and provide an interesting counter pressure to Musk's "This is fine" attitude. Not saying either is right, but the friction is likely valuable. I'd not want to be an investor in a private Tesla. It would seem way to volatile.

I am a shareholder. I will not be selling after going private. This is really good for me because we can finally stick it to the shorts and the only people who we lose are "traders" - I don't care about what they think. Long term investors only is a good motto :)

If Elon's tweet is motivated by a desire to stick it to the shorts, and he does not in fact have funding lined up to take Tesla public, he could (probably would) face a massive stock manipulation lawsuit that would bankrupt him, in addition to any SEC settlements which would likely result in him being banned from holding an executive or board position in any publicly traded company.

Re: Taking Tesla Private

#204

Post by ilove_banh_mi »

gamblor956 wrote: post #164
gameswithgo wrote: post #98

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…

My understanding is that in 2009 Ford rejected the bailout the US automakers were offered (taking instead a loan which they are still repaying, through 2022).

GM was effectively nationalized (at a reported cost of $11b) and the creditors lost their shirts.

Re: Taking Tesla Private

#205

Post by gonehome »

Tomte wrote: post #123
S_A_P wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. Your last sentence seems to sum up the motive here in my opinion, not so much to screw the short sellers, but to limit/stop the ability of them to influence the value of the company through whatever means.

Short sellers aren‘t evil. They are a mechanism how the public trade exchange improves its estimate how much a company is worth. After the very ugly financial news over the last months (but probably true — nobody has credibly refuted them), it‘s not hard to see why Musk and the less rational part of his supporters would love to see short sellers disappear, and „punished“.

Shorting is fine when you're predicting the stock will go down, it starts leaning towards evil when you try and damage the company to cause the price to go down.

Billions on the line create a nasty incentive and a publicly traded company is more at risk of negative attacks when they're not yet profitable.

Re: Taking Tesla Private

#206

Post by jonknee »

CydeWeys wrote: post #188
jonknee wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's Wall Street and there would be rumors if someone was shopping the largest LBO ever. It's not like there are a lot of places you can go for this service, Tesla isn't going to back out on the deal because it leaked your bank has met with Elon.

Would there be rumors though, when improper disclosure could potentially be illegal and bring down the SEC on your head? Also, even if there are rumors, why would that necessarily logically go from bankers talking to each other to immediately blabbing to the press?

It's rare for word of mega deals like this to not leak out in some fashion, doubly so after it's already been tweeted about by the CEO. If they had seriously been shopping this deal it would have already been in the WSJ. Considering the letter mentioned no funding I am under the impression that this is more of an Elon solo project and less of a serious undertaking by the company.

Re: Taking Tesla Private

#207

Post by maaaats »

dang wrote: post #198
maaaats wrote: post #172

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…

That's fair. Thanks for explaining.

Re: Taking Tesla Private

#208

Post by [deleted] »

eastendguy wrote: post #113
belltaco wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still have to publicly reveal all the quarterly numbers, estimates for next few quarters, do all the GAAP accounting etc. which puts a lot of toll on a company that's going through wild swings in capital spending and production. If they don't keep their promises, the stock will crash, so everyone goes on a production death march close to the end of the quarter under extreme stress, instead of just growing organic…

Yeah, but why not just ignore a stock price crash if you don't need to sell and believe in the long term plan?

[deleted]

Re: Taking Tesla Private

#209

Post by austenallred »

southerndrift wrote: post #109
nine_k wrote: post #16

> As a public company, we are subject to wild swings in our stock price that can be a major distraction for everyone working at Tesla, all of whom are shareholders. Being public also subjects us to the quarterly earnings cycle that puts enormous pressure on Tesla to make decisions that may be right for a given quarter, but not necessarily right for the long-term. > SpaceX is a perfect example: it is far more operatio…

Going private, wouldn't it be a bigger distraction for everyone working at Tesla to wonder whether they can find a private buyer or not for their shares and what their shares are actually worth?

I can't imagine anything more distracting than a big number that goes up and down minute to minute changing the value of the equity they hold

Re: Taking Tesla Private

#210

Post by Element_ »

martin_bech wrote: post #118
martinald wrote: post #38

Pretty enormous amount of money required. Say half of TSLA shareholders take the $420, that's approx ~$40bn required. Then there's another $10bnish of debt refinancing required, and probably many more billion for future product development and new assembly lines. I don't think Softbank could finance this, it would be well over half their entire fund. Saudi maybe - but still quite a chunk of change for them.

Or Apple, Google, maybe even Jeff from Amazon. Musk changes the rules of the game on a regular basis.

Just because those companies have massive market caps and cash reserves doesn't mean they can cut a check for 40B+ to buy a company that is burning cash. Hard to imagine any board signing off on that deal.
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