Investor's Corner
How Elon Musk walked away from Tesla’s privatization despite $30 billion offer
Last Wednesday, Elon Musk received an offer for the company’s possible privatization. The proposal was presented to Musk by advisers from Goldman Sachs and Silver Lake, and included a roster of prolific investors willing to contribute as much as $30 billion to Tesla. A day later, Musk met with the company’s Board of Directors at the Fremont factory and announced that he is withdrawing his proposal to take the company private.
The story of Tesla’s attempted privatization started off with a tweet. On August 7, Elon Musk announced on Twitter that he was considering taking Tesla private at $420 per share. Musk also added that funding had been secured for the deal. Later tweets during the day further suggested that the deal was quite certain and that Tesla’s privatization only needed a shareholder vote. Musk eventually published a blog post explaining his tweet a few days later, stating that his reference to funding being secured came from talks with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. The weeks following Musk’s initial announcement were volatile. SEC investigations were reportedly started, lawsuits were filed, and the company’s shares took a deep dive, at one point dipping below $290 per share.
Musk had been thinking of taking Tesla private for a while now. Being a public company, Tesla is subjected to the wild swings of the stock market, relentless attacks from short-sellers, and quarterly pressures from Wall Street. Musk’s other company, SpaceX, is private, and it pretty much runs like a far better-oiled version of Tesla. In an email to the Wall Street Journal this past weekend, Elon Musk explained that Tesla’s privatization was only feasible now, as the company is poised to rise considerably in the coming months.
“In my opinion, the value of Tesla will rise considerably in the coming months and years, possibly putting any take-private beyond the reach of any investors. It was now or perhaps never,” Musk wrote.
Elon Musk hired several high-profile advisers for Tesla’s possible privatization, including bankers from Goldman Sachs, as well as attorneys from Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. Musk also hired Egon Durban of Silver Lake Partners, who had brokered and helped bankroll the buyout of computer maker Dell when it went private. Musk also kept close counsel with Tesla executives such as Chief Technology Officer J.B. Straubel, Attorney Todd Maron (who was once his divorce lawyer), finance chief Deepak Ahuja, and his brother Kimbal, who also holds a seat at Tesla’s board.
On August 18, Elon Musk presented ideas about how Tesla’s privatization could be done. According to the Wall Street Journal, the members of the Board were in support of Musk’s go-private initiative, though some had reservations about the CEO’s actions on Twitter. Musk reportedly admitted to his rashness and pledged to exercise more self-control on the social media platform. Musk then went over to the Fremont factory, where he worked until past midnight, tweeting past 2 a.m. that he had just gotten home. He was able to rest the following day.
Tesla’s advisers went into overdrive on August 20 and 21, coming up with a list of possible investors that would provide funding for the company to go private. By August 22, advisers from Goldman Sachs and Silver Lake had a list of interested investors who were willing to fund Tesla’s privatization at $420 per share. Among them were Silver Lake itself, as well as German auto giant Volkswagen AG. The investors have reportedly agreed to contribute as much as $30 billion for the deal. Elon Musk had reservations.
Musk was reportedly suspicious of rival car companies taking a stake in Tesla, particularly since they could piggyback on what the CEO called the “Tesla Halo.” Musk was also bothered by the notion that some of Tesla’s most ardent supporters would likely be pushed out of the privatization deal. For one, Fidelity Investments, which has supported Tesla over the years, would not be able to roll its entire stake in the company due to regulatory constraints.
Retail investors — individual shareholders who believe in Tesla’s mission and are putting in their hard-earned money into the company — might be in jeopardy as well. Then there was the photo. Earlier this month, Musk received a photo emailed to him by an elderly couple dressed in Tesla t-shirts with a handwritten sign congratulating the company for producing 7,000 electric cars in seven days. The message in the photo was short, simply saying “Thanks, Elon! Two happy stockholders!” Musk reportedly forwarded the email to a friend, writing that the picture “Made my day.”
After giving him the $30 billion offer, the privatization deal team advised Musk that the funding would likely come with several strings attached, as some major investors might want to have specific terms for themselves. Some would also demand to have a lot of say in the company.
The day after, a board meeting was held in a conference room at the Fremont factory — one that still had a used sleeping bag from Musk’s overnight working sessions at the facility. The company’s financial advisers stated that they were confident that Tesla’s privatization could be done. Then, it was Musk’s turn to speak.
“Based on the latest information I have, I’m withdrawing the proposal,” Musk said.
Elon Musk’s blog post explaining his decision to keep the company public was published on Tesla’s official website a day later.
For years, there have been images and videos across social media platforms that have reminded me of when I was a 15-year-old kid teased by “Xbox 720” videos on YouTube. These videos are of the supposed “Tesla Phone” that Elon Musk was secretly developing in between leading Tesla with its electric cars and SpaceX with its reusable rockets.
Would you buy a Tesla phone ? pic.twitter.com/aaTwvvIJit
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) October 6, 2023
Although Musk has put those rumors to bed several times, it was never completely out of the realm that he could get involved in cell phones in some capacity. Think outside the box and more macro-level, though. Instead of reinventing the computer, Musk reinvented connectivity by developing Starlink with SpaceX.
It could be something similar, TD Cowen analyst Gregory Williams said in a note last week, where he hinted SpaceX could be gathering some steam to acquire T-Mobile.
Williams said it would be the “clear choice” for SpaceX if it decided to go through with a network acquisition. He also suggested AT&T.
The move would be possible through selling more of its own stock, which would help SpaceX raise the money to purchase T-Mobile, which would cost roughly $300 billion. It could be one of the moves SpaceX makes post-IPO in terms of an acquisition: it already acquired Cursor AI for $60 billion.
Other analysts, like Dan Ives of Wedbush, believe SpaceX and Tesla will eventually merge into one anyway, and that conglomeration could come as soon as this year, some have said.
The implications of SpaceX purchasing T-Mobile are massive. A combined entity would create a truly ubiquitous network: T-Mobile’s terrestrial 5G towers and Starlink’s growing constellation of Direct-to-Cell satellites. This would essentially eliminate dead zones across the U.S. and potentially globally.
SpaceX would instantly become a full-scale facilities-based carrier with satellite differentiation; a huge advantage. This would pressure AT&T and Verizon heavily.
There are also concerns like a potential reduction in long-term competition, and of course, a deal of that size would face intense scrutiny from government agencies.
The strategic fit is compelling due to the existing Starlink–T-Mobile partnership and complementary technologies (space + terrestrial). It could create a dominant integrated communications player. However, the regulatory, financial, and execution hurdles are enormous — this remains highly speculative with no indication SpaceX is actively pursuing it right now.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s newest Starmind will make earth data centers obsolete
Elon Musk confirmed Starmind as SpaceX’s AI satellite constellation name, targeting one million orbital compute nodes.
Elon Musk confirmed that Starmind will be the official name of SpaceX’s planned AI satellite constellation, following a trademark filing by xAI that surfaced earlier this week. Starmind is what’s being described to the FCC as a constellation of up to one million AI satellites
It’s worth noting that SpaceX’s Starlink communication satellite and Starmind are built on the same orbital infrastructure concept but serve entirely different purposes. Starlink is a connectivity network, with satellites receiving and relaying data between points on Earth, and functioning as a high-speed internet backbone in space. The satellites themselves do not process or think, and move information from one place to another, the same function a fiber cable performs underground.
SpaceX just forced Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile to team up for the first time in history
Starmind, on the other hand, is something completely different, and tather than moving data, its satellites would compute data through artificial intelligence and directly in orbit using onboard processors powered by large solar arrays. Where a Starlink satellite is essentially a very fast pipe, a Starmind satellite is a server. The practical implication is that Starmind would allow AI models to run inference, process queries, and generate outputs from space, then beam results down to users anywhere on Earth within milliseconds, and without the data ever needing to travel to a terrestrial data center.
Starship will be able to carry 30 to 50 AI1 satellites per launch, delivering the equivalent of dozens of server racks per flight, with no land acquisition, no power grid approval, and no cooling infrastructure required on the ground.
SpaceX is pursuing this new technology as terrestrial data centers are running into hard limits such as lack of physical space, community opposition, and power and water consumption at a scale that is increasingly difficult to permit. Space has unlimited solar power, natural vacuum cooling, and no zoning boards. Musk said in a June 8 video presentation that he expects space to become the lowest-cost location to deploy AI compute within two to three years. Two AI1 prototypes are scheduled to launch in early 2027, with volume production targeted for the end of that year at a new facility called Gigasat.
The real world applications Starmind enables extend well beyond powering Grok. A constellation of orbiting AI processors could run inference workloads for any paying customer, anywhere on Earth, with latency measured in milliseconds rather than the seconds associated with ground-based cloud routing across continents. Starmind, if it scales as described, would make SpaceX the landlord of AI compute the same way Starlink made it the landlord of satellite internet.
SpaceX announced today that it commenced its first-ever public bond offering, marking a significant step in the newly public company’s capital markets strategy.
The company announced an offering of senior unsecured notes expected to raise at least $20 billion.
The move comes just a short time after SpaceX completed one of the largest initial public offerings in history. In mid-June, the company priced shares at $135 and raised more than $85 billion, propelling founder Elon Musk’s net worth past the trillion-dollar mark and giving the firm substantial liquidity.
🚨 SpaceX has announced its inaugural offering of senior unsecured notes.
The net proceeds will be used to repay outstanding loans under its bridge loan facility in full.
This inaugural debt offering represents a financing milestone for SpaceX, which previously depended… pic.twitter.com/pcOZuVbTRv
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 22, 2026
According to the company’s SEC filing, the net proceeds from the notes will be used primarily to repay in full the outstanding borrowings under its existing bridge loan facility, cover related fees and expenses, and fund general corporate purposes. The offering is being conducted under Rule 144A, as well as Regulation S, targeting qualified institutional buyers and non-U.S. investors. Notes will be unsecured obligations ranking equally with other unsubordinated debt.
The $20 billion bridge loan was used to refinance approximately $17.5 billion in higher-cost “junk” debt tied to X and xAI. SpaceX had merged with xAI in February 2026 in an all-stock deal. The bridge facility, which matures in September 2027, had represented the bulk of SpaceX’s long-term debt.
SpaceX officially acquires xAI, merging rockets with AI expertise
In connection with the bond launch, SpaceX disclosed it held approximately $100.8 billion in cash and cash equivalents as of June 19. Investor calls began on the announcement date, with pricing and launch expected shortly thereafter. Rating agencies have assigned investment-grade ratings to the proposed bonds, reflecting confidence in SpaceX’s dominant position in commercial launches and the growth trajectory of its Starlink internet offering.
The debt raise also allows SpaceX to optimize its balance sheet by replacing short-term, higher-cost bridge financing with longer-date, lower-cost fixed-income securities. This provides greater financial flexibility to support capital-intensive initiatives, including the development of Starship, the expansion of the Starlink constellation, and the integration of AI capabilities following the xAI combination.
SpaceX shares (NASDAQ: SPCX) fell sharply on the news, dropping over 16 percent overall on the market on Monday. The stock had surged initially after debuting but pulled back amid profit-taking and broader market dynamics.
Overall, the bond offering underscores SpaceX’s transition to a mature public company with access to diverse funding sources. It positions the firm to pursue its long-term vision of multiplanetary expansion and AI infrastructure, while maintaining a disciplined approach to its capital structure in a high-growth but capital-heavy industry.
Tesla Phone? Not quite, but close: analyst
Tesla reveals huge Cybercab detail in new guide for First Responders
