Taking Tesla Private

Post by cs702 » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 9:10 PM UTC

nopriorarrests wrote: post #230

cs702 wrote: post #90

No external financing might be necessary , because virtually all Tesla shareholders today (i.e., people who are net-long the stock) are true long-term believers in Musk's vision unconcerned with the company's short-term financial issues. (People who are concerned with financial issues are either avoiding the stock or shorting it.) These true-believer shareholders will want to hang on to their shares as the company go…

I need to double check it, but some of the largest institutional shareholders, like Vanguard Group, could only hold positions in public companies, so they will have to sell. Retail investors can decide to go private, but tesla free float is very small, so they don't matter much in a grand scheme of things.

Post by nine_k » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 9:12 PM UTC

leereeves wrote: post #225

gamblor956 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> [GM has] since repaid those loans...though GM discharged much of its loan through bankruptcy. What did you mean to say here? That GM eliminated (not repaid) the loan through bankruptcy? Or that GM discharged the loan then repaid it anyway?

Post by nopriorarrests » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 9:17 PM UTC

gonehome wrote: post #205

Tomte wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Post by nightski » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 9:26 PM UTC

austenallred wrote: post #209

southerndrift wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Post by nine_k » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 9:35 PM UTC

microtherion wrote: post #228

Johnny555 wrote: post #89

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.

A profitable company has no need to be excessively concerned about its stock price. Of course, at some point, shareholders might consider putting on pressure, but that doesn't really seem to have happened even with Tesla. And in closely held companies, that kind of pressure is much stronger — it's not like Musk has $70B of spare change in his couch pillows, so he'll always have to deal with co-owners.