Here’s the email Elon Musk sent to Tesla employees Friday night

Tesla CEO Elon Musk explained on Friday his decision to keep the company public.Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

• Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced Friday that Tesla will remain a public company.
• The announcement came two weeks after Musk said he was considering taking the company private and suggested a shareholder vote was the only remaining step in the process.
• In an email to employees acquired by Business Insider, Musk said that, while there was still a case to be made for Tesla to go private, he had determined that staying public was in the best interests of the company and its investors.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on Friday that Tesla will remain a public company. The announcement came two weeks after Musk said he was considering taking the company private and suggested a shareholder vote was the only remaining step in the process.

In an email to employees acquired by Business Insider, Musk said that, while there was still a case to be made for Tesla to go private, he had determined that staying public was in the best interests of the company and its investors.

Below is the full email Musk sent:

After giving this a lot of thought, I have come to the conclusion that the best path for the foreseeable future is for Tesla to remain a public company.

There are certainly a number of very compelling reasons to go private, so this is far from an obvious decision, but, on balance, being public appears to best serve the interests of Tesla and those who have invested in our future.

Thanks for being awesome,

Elon

At the bottom of the email, Musk linked to a post he published on Tesla’s website, where he explained how he had come to the conclusion to keep Tesla public. He said in the post that, while he believed there was “more than enough funding” to complete a go-private deal, he had received feedback that indicated a majority of the company’s shareholders would prefer that Tesla stay public, including from institutional shareholders who have a limited ability to invest in private companies.

“Although the majority of shareholders I spoke to said they would remain with Tesla if we went private, the sentiment, in a nutshell, was ‘please don’t do this,”’ Musk said.

Musk also said he had come to realize that converting Tesla into a private company would create more distractions than he had previously thought.

In the coming months, investors and analysts will continue to focus on Tesla’s ability to ramp up production of its Model 3 sedan and become profitable. 

Musk has said that Tesla will become profitable starting in the third quarter of this year and will not need to raise additional funds, despite its increased cash-burn rate in recent quarters.

Kate Taylor contributed reporting.

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