Elon Musk’s Open Letter: Tesla will Remain Public

Elon Musk has written another open letter confirming that Tesla will remain public, which is consistent with our previous judgment <Tesla Won’t Go Private; Here’s What You Should Really Care About>. Despite objections from most institutional shareholders, Elon has ultimately decided to abandon the privatization process and instead focus on leading the Tesla team to achieve its mission of accelerating the world’s transition to sustainable energy.

Below is the full text of the unedited open letter, Enjoy.

“Earlier this month, I announced that I was considering taking Tesla private. As part of the process, it was important to understand whether our current investors believed this would be a good strategic move and whether they would want to participate in a private Tesla.”Our investors are of utmost importance to me. Almost all of them have maintained confidence in us since we went public in 2010, despite not having had any cars in production at the time, but merely a vision of what we wanted to achieve. They strongly believe in our mission to accelerate the world’s transition towards sustainable energy and are deeply committed to our success.

I collaborated with Silver Lake, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley, who possess world-class expertise in these matters, to analyze the various factors involved in taking Tesla private and manage the significant interest we received from investors to fund a buyout. I also invested considerable time in listening to our current shareholders, both large and small, to gain a better understanding of what they believe would be in Tesla’s best long-term interests.Based on all the discussions that have taken place over the last couple of weeks and a thorough consideration of what is best for the company, a few things are clear to me:

Given the feedback I’ve received, it’s apparent that most of Tesla’s existing shareholders believe we are better off as a public company. Additionally, a number of institutional shareholders have explained that they have internal compliance issues that limit how much they can invest in a private company. There is also no proven path for most retail investors to own shares if we were private. 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.”
鉴于我收到的反馈，很明显，特斯拉的大多数现有股东都认为我们作为上市公司会更好。此外，一些机构股东表示，他们有内部规定，限制他们可以投资私人公司的数量。如果我们私有化了，大多数散户投资者也没有经过证明可以拥有股票的途径。虽然与我交谈的大多数股东表示，如果我们私有化，他们会留在特斯拉，但简而言之，他们的态度是“请不要这样做”。* I knew the process of going private would be challenging, but it’s clear that it would be even more time-consuming and distracting than initially anticipated. This is a problem because we absolutely must stay focused on ramping Model 3 and becoming profitable. We will not achieve our mission of advancing sustainable energy unless we are also financially sustainable.
我知道私有化的过程会很有挑战性，但很明显它会比最初预期的更耗费时间和分散注意力。这是一个问题，因为我们绝对必须专注于提升 Model 3 的产能和实现盈利。除非我们在财务上可持续，否则我们无法实现加速世界向可持续能源转变的使命。
That said, my belief that there is morethan enough funding to take Tesla private was reinforced during this process.
也就是说，在这个过程中，我认为有足够的资金来让特斯拉私有化。

After considering all of these factors, I met with Tesla’s Board of Directors yesterday and let them know that I believe the better path is for Tesla to remain public. The Board indicated that they agree.

在考虑了所有这些因素之后，我昨天会见了特斯拉董事会，让他们知悉我相信继续上市对特斯拉是更好的一条发展路线。董事会也同意这一观点。Moving forward, we will continue to focus on what matters most: building products that people love and that make a difference to the shared future of life on Earth. We’ve shown that we can make great sustainable energy products, and we now need to show that we can be sustainably profitable. With all the progress we’ve made on Model 3, we’re positioned to do this, and that’s what the team and I are going to be putting all of our efforts toward.

Thank you to all of our investors, customers and employees for the support you’ve given our company. I’m incredibly excited to continue leading Tesla as a public company. It is a privilege.

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