Tesla is not going private, CEO Elon Musk announces

“Earlier this month, I announced that I was considering taking
Tesla private. As part of the process, it was important to
understand whether our current investors believed this would be
a good strategic move and whether they would want to
participate in a private Tesla.

Our investors are extremely important to me. Almost all have
stuck with us from the time we went public in 2010 when we had
no cars in production and only a vision of what we wanted to
be. They believe strongly in our mission to advance sustainable
energy and care deeply about our success.

I worked with Silver Lake, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley,
who have world-class expertise in these matters, to consider
the many factors that would come into play in taking Tesla
private, and to process all the incoming interest that we
received from investors to fund a go-private transaction. I
also spent considerable time listening to current shareholders,
large and small, to understand what they think would be in the
best long-term interests of Tesla.

Based on all the discussions that have taken place over the
last couple of weeks and a thorough consideration of what is
best for the company, a few things are clear to me:

• Given the feedback I’ve received, it’s apparent that most
  of Tesla’s existing shareholders believe we are better off as a
  public company. Additionally, a number of institutional
  shareholders have explained that they have internal compliance
  issues that limit how much they can invest in a private
  company. There is also no proven path for most retail investors
  to own shares if we were private. 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.”
• I knew the process of going private would be challenging,
  but it’s clear that it would be even more time-consuming and
  distracting than initially anticipated. This is a problem
  because we absolutely must stay focused on ramping Model 3 and
  becoming profitable. We will not achieve our mission of
  advancing sustainable energy unless we are also financially
  sustainable.
• That said, my belief that there is more than enough funding
  to take Tesla private was reinforced during this process.

After considering all of these factors, I met with Tesla’s
Board of Directors yesterday and let them know that I believe
the better path is for Tesla to remain public. The Board
indicated that they agree.

Moving forward, we will continue to focus on what matters most:
building products that people love and that make a difference
to the shared future of life on Earth. We’ve shown that we can
make great sustainable energy products, and we now need to show
that we can be sustainably profitable. With all the progress
we’ve made on Model 3, we’re positioned to do this, and that’s
what the team and I are going to be putting all of our efforts
toward.

Thank you to all of our investors, customers and employees for
the support you’ve given our company. I’m incredibly excited to
continue leading Tesla as a public company. It is a privilege.”