VW Group was reportedly investor in Musk’s plan to take Tesla private

Tesla CEO Elon Musk.Mark Brake / Getty Images

• Volkswagen Group was reportedly one of the investors lined up in Tesla CEO Elon Musk‘s plan to take Tesla private, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
• The revelation comes days after Tesla announced late Friday that Musk has scrapped his plan to take the company private.
• Musk originally tweeted that he was considering taking Tesla private at $420 per share earlier this month.

Volkswagen Group was reportedly one of the investors lined up in Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s plan to take Tesla private, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

According to the WSJ, Musk’s plan to take Tesla private would require a buyout of the technology mutual funds that currently hold major stakes in the carmaker would have to trim their holdings. 

As a result, the German automotive giant among others had been lined up by Musk’s bankers to offset the loss of these mutual funds, people familiar with the matter told the publication. 

Neither Tesla nor Volkswagen were immediately available for comment. 

The development comes after Tesla announced through a blog post late Friday evening that Musk has scrapped his plans to take the company private.

In the post, Musk said that most of the Tesla’s investors felt that the company is better off as a public company. In addition, Musk said that the process of going private would be time-consuming and a distraction from the company’s ramp-up of Model 3 production. 

“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,” Musk wrote.

The reversal comes less than three weeks after the tech billionaire announced on August 7 via Twitter that he was thinking about “taking Tesla private at $420” per share along with the proclamation that funding for the move had been secured.

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