Musk gives up on taking Tesla private

Existing shareholders of Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) have convinced Elon Musk to let go of his plan to take the US electric vehicles (EVs) maker private, the CEO announced on Friday.

Musk said in a blog post that, after discussing the matter with current investors, he has determined that the better path for Tesla is to remain public. He has informed the board about his decision and the directors have indicated that they agree, according to the statement.

“Although the majority of shareholders I spoke to said they would remain with Tesla if we went private, the sentiment, in a nutshell, was ‘please don’t do this’,” Musk wrote.

In addition, the CEO has come to the conclusion that such a transaction would be more time-consuming and distracting than initially anticipated, and he would rather have the company stay focused on ramping its Model 3 and becoming profitable. Musk, though, reiterated that there is more than enough funding to take Tesla private.

As previously announced, Musk had discussed the potential going-private move with the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, which already holds a stake of almost 5% in the company. He worked with Silver Lake, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to consider the proposal.

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