Elon Musk's Tesla Plans To Acquire Elon Musk's SolarCity For $2.7B In Stock (techcrunch.com) 55
An anonymous reader writes from a report via TechCrunch: Today, Elon Musk's electric car and battery company Tesla has announced its offer to buy solar panel installation company SolarCity. Now is a better time than ever to acquire SolarCity, as it recently had its value downgraded. If Tesla does acquire SolarCity, the companies could allow you to outfit your home with solar panels that power a giant battery for your various appliances, such as an electric vehicle. The deal, which has yet to be approved by SolarCity and its board, involves SolarCity's stock being exchanged for Tesla stock. TechCrunch reports that "the deal would pay a premium of 21% to 30% on top of SolarCity's value of $2.14 billion, so Tesla would be buying SolarCity for between $2.59 billion and $2.78 billion worth of its stock." The Tesla team writes, "It's now time to complete the picture. Tesla customers can drive clean cars and they can use our battery packs to help consume energy more efficiently, but they still need access to the most sustainable energy source that's available: the sun." Elon Musk has also been in the news today through OpenAI, the artificial-intelligence non-profit backed by Elon Musk, Amazon Web Services and others. OpenAI announced it is working on creating a physical robot that performs household chores.
Re:So where does mr. Elon Musk figure in all this? (Score:5, Funny)
From the tone of the article, I think Elon Musk might be involved behind the scenes, pulling the strings.
Only time with tell.
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And both companies have never been profitable.
SolarCity is an interesting enterprise. Its existence is wholly dependent on federal and state subsidies, more than $400 million in federal tax credits so far. Since the company is the one that owns the solar equipment, it gets the subsidy rather than their residential and business customers with 20 year leases. They don't even have their own installers, they contract for that service and they have a significant number of cases with incorrect installations. It i
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Profit is only one part of the equation. Both companies have been channeling their resources into expansion and their net worth is now measured in billions of dollars. Teslas Gigafactory alone is expected to be worth $5 Billion. As far as subsidies, try to find a major company that doesn't receive significant tax breaks from the government. Boeing alone has received $13 Billion over the last decade or so.
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This is how you cash in. Use stockholder money to buy your own company.
This is a stock transaction. No money is changing hands.
Re: So where does mr. Elon Musk figure in all this (Score:2)
Value is. Investors of Tesla are diluted and investors of solar city will make money. Musk well most likely end up owning more of the combined company than he did before the deal.
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I'm not sure I understand the process.
Isn't it just moving one cell in some Excel sheet?
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From the tone of the article, I think Elon Musk might be involved behind the scenes, pulling the strings.
Only time with tell.
Seems that investors are quite concerned with this deal. [bloomberg.com] Musk is the kind of person that plans is moves very far in advance. [teslamotors.com] It's just not obvious why he is doing this.
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In the far-right and the wrong direction.
I need to see the negotiations (Score:4, Funny)
Elon Musk: So do we have a deal?
[Elon gets up from his seat at one end of a massive conference table where he is flanked by lawyers, and walks around to the other end, where he sits down, flanked by other lawyers.]
Elon Musk: We have an agreement.
[Elon Musk gets up, crosses to the middle of the room, and shakes his own hand to the cheers of his fellows.]
New Name... (Score:5, Funny)
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Musk Industries. Because it pretty much stinks.
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Sounds like you smell a rat.
Muskrat Industries
This is common in Silicon Valley (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This is common in Silicon Valley (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah - it's a shame that deal didn't work out for any of the involved parties.
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But as an insider of Solar City, he can sell without consequences the newly-acquired Tesla stock as soon as his Solar City shares are converted?
He needs money for a divorce too. That was a bad investment.
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It is really all about the concept of a residential power solution. You can not sell just a branded battery, with a hodge podge for everything else, the panels, the inverter and the installation. To properly brand and create the concept of a long term investment, that the next property buyer can have confidence in, you need a single branded system. So it is say a, Tesla 1000X power system, with a long term investment value of ? depreciating annually at ? or a Tesla 10,000XXX system, all done by licensed in
Does he actually own all of these companies? (Score:2)
When something is sold between separate companies controlled by one person, it might be for sound reasons of strategy or synergy.
ROFL.
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How would it be possible to evade any taxes? It isn't like Musk can go sell the new Tesla stocks and not pay any taxes on them.
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Yes, the surf only goes 'til the land. Until global warming raises the sea level, of course.
Re: What happens to the common schmucks? (Score:1)
They would now own Tesla stock.
Weyland-Yutani (Score:1)
Made manifest. Progress.
Well, Elon Musk is cerainly getting his money's... (Score:1)
...worth from his investment in BeauHD for Slashdot's front page today...
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Nuclear isn't sustainable, solar is for the duration of life on Earth. Just like oil we have a finite amount of nuclear fuel, we should save it in case we end up with no other way to go to other solar systems than to putt along on generational ships.
that's stupid. Nuclear is sustainable for centuries, far longer than anyone would care to analyze.
Solar does not meet the power demand cycle and without any reasonable scale energy storage is untenable, takes up too much space for the power it generates, is expensive to maintain (the frames need constant corrosion resistance maintenance), and thus ultimately underserves it's promise.
Charging battery to later charge car's battery (Score:1)
Doesn't that scream "inefficient"?
PS
Oh, Li-Ion charge efficiency is close to 100%, never mind... ^^
http://liionbms.com/pdf/Elithi... [liionbms.com]