San Francisco sources reported that Elon Musk wrote to Tesla employees in an email 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. Meanwhile as per report being public also subjects Tesla to the quarterly earnings cycle that puts enormous pressure on it to "make decisions that may be right for a given quarter, but not necessarily right for the long-term.
Furthermore as the most shorted stock in the history of the stock market, being public means that there are large numbers of people who have the incentive to attack the company. Moreover the news led to Tesla share going up to $343.84 at the end of trading on Tuesday. Hence Musk, who owns approximately 20% of Tesla at the moment, said he aims to structure the company in such a way so that all shareholders have a choice.
Accordingly "Either they can stay investors in
a private Tesla or they can be bought out at $420 per share, which is a 20% premium
over the stock price following our Q2 earnings call (which had already
increased by 16%). Musk wrote that "The intention is not to merge SpaceX
and Tesla. They would continue to have separate ownership and governance
structures”. Hence this proposal to go private would ultimately be finalized through
a vote of shareholders.
