A Little Too #Rich for His Own Good: Exploring Elon Musk’s Tesla Drama

It’s been a wild few weeks for Tesla, its founder Elon Musk, and all its stakeholders. Musk stipulated that he wanted to take Tesla private, but ran into a bit of a snag: turns out his fortune wasn’t big enough to pay for everything himself. As with any good Musk plan though, he hatched a solution to the problem that was equal parts genius and outrageous.

Musk Rolls Out Plan

Only Musk could dream up such a crazy plan and have it sort-of seem plausible: the eccentric inventor proposed to pay for the $420 take-private plan using Musk’s personal SpaceX shares, cash from Tesla itself, and from other investors in order to make it a reality!

Sure, taking the company private would create a lot of value for Musk, who would remain the majority-owner of Tesla – but not necessarily enough to finance the enormous cost. Enter the SpaceX ‘bailout’, with Musk declaring that if he had chose to keep the shares of SpaceX, his rocket company, it would have been enough to finance the entire take-private plan.

Wait, What? SpaceX and Tesla??

The plan was short-lived though. After Musk hastily put forward the Tesla take-private plan he found out that it could have some serious legal, governmental and financial backlashes with investors. Ultimately, the plan was scrapped, much to the relief of many people who were scratching their heads over the SpaceX-Tesla connection.

Investors Relax, Musk Back to Business as Usual

So, all is well that ends well! After some financial turbulence, investors are now able to breathe a sigh of relief. Musk is back to business, and the share price of Tesla has stabilized.

In true Musk fashion, he provided us with a fun rollercoaster ride of high finance, but at the end of the day he must have realized that he was a little too #rich for his own good when it came to executing the take-private plan!

A Few Things We Learnt

To wrap things up, let’s summarize a few things we learnt from Elon Musk and the Tesla take-private plan rollercoaster:

• Money can’t buy you everything. Even our beloved Elon had to realize that not even his SpaceX shares could finance the entire take-private plan.
• Think before you act. It sounds simple, but given the too-good-to-be-true vision of the take-private plan Musk proposed, it’s clear he didn’t do enough thinking (thankfully no major damage was done!).
• Rely on professionals. Never be afraid to ask the experts for advice, rather than going it alone. After all, financing such an expensive plan is no easy task!