On August 13, almost a week after the surprising announcement, Musk finally laid out the "secured" funding source: Saudi Arabia.
The kingdom's sovereign wealth fund had been interested in a Tesla stake "going back two years," Musk said in another blog post. At the time, the fund owned a roughly 5% stake in the company on public exchanges.
"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," Musk said. "This is why I referred to "funding secured" in the August 7th announcement."
However, funding was not secured.
"I continue to have discussions with the Saudi fund, and I also am having discussions with a number of other investors, which is something that I always planned to do since I would like for Tesla to continue to have a broad investor base," Musk said. "It is appropriate to complete those discussions before presenting a detailed proposal to an independent board committee."
That didn't sit well with investors. By the end of the day, Tesla's share price had fallen to 8% below its peak when the plan was announced.
To close the blog post, Musk said a special committee was being formed by the company's board. If his plan is approved by the directors, it would be presented to shareholders, he said.