Elon Musk reveals he is working with Goldman Sachs and Silver Lake to help take Tesla private

Cadie Thompson

Aug 14, 2018, 08:01 IST

Elon Musk reveals he is working with Goldman Sachs and Silver Lake to help take Tesla private

Max Whittaker / Getty Images

Elon Musk sheds more light on a possible deal to take Tesla private.

Elon Musk said via Twitter Monday evening that he was working on a proposal with Goldman Sachs and Silver Lake as financial advisors to take Tesla private.
In a statement on Monday, Musk also shared more details about who might fund a deal to take Tesla private.
Musk said in the statement that a meeting with the managing director of Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund prompted his tweet about wanting to take Tesla private. But Musk said he is also having discussions with other investors because he wants to "continue to have a broad investor base."

Elon Musk said via Twitter Monday evening that he was working Goldman Sachs and Silver Lake as financial advisors on a proposal to take Tesla private.

Musk also said that he was working with the law firms Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and Munger and Tolles & Olson as legal advisors.

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Goldman Sachs declined to comment. Silver Lake and both law firms did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Goldman Sachs has long been a key adviser to Tesla, but the involvement of Silver Lake, best known as a private equity firm specializing in tech investments, is striking. Reuters reported after the tweet that Silver Lake was not discussing participating as an investir in the deal and "was offering its assistance to Musk without compensation and had not been hired as a financial adviser in an official capacity," citing a source.

It started with a tweet

On August 7, Musk tweeted: "Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured."

Since Musk's announcement last week, details about such a deal have been sparse.

In a statement published on the company's website Monday, Musk said that after a July 31 meeting with the managing director of Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund he was confident that the fund would back a deal to take Tesla private.

"During the meeting, the Managing Director of the fund expressed regret that I had not moved forward previously on a going private transaction with them, and he strongly expressed his support for funding a going private transaction for Tesla at this time," Musk said in his statement. "I understood from him that no other decision makers were needed and that they were eager to proceed.

"I left the July 31st meeting with no question that a deal with the Saudi sovereign fund could be closed, and that it was just a matter of getting the process moving. This is why I referred to 'funding secured' in the August 7th announcement."

Musk said in his statement that he is still in talks with the Saudi fund, but that he is also having discussions with other investors because he wants to "continue to have a broad investor base."

He said:

"I will now continue to talk with investors, and I have engaged advisors to investigate a range of potential structures and options. Among other things, this will allow me to obtain a more precise understanding of how many of Tesla's existing public shareholders would remain shareholders if we became private."

Full details regarding the source of funding would be provided before anyone would be asked to decide on going private but that it was "premature" to share such information, Musk said.