Billionaire Elon Musk said it is “impossible” to get Tesla Inc. now private, even though he would have liked to spend more time on innovation.
“The duties of Tesla’s public companies are a much bigger factor, but going private is now impossible (sighs),” Musk said in response to a tweet say he should optimize his time in areas such as innovation. “Engineering, design, and general business activities take up most of my head and are the fundamental constraint to doing more.”
Tesla stocks, which have been included in the S&P 500 index this week, have risen eightfold this year, ahead of its addition to the benchmark measure. The gain is twice the progress of the next best performer on the meter. The stock price surge also created millionaires among its investors, propelling Musk’s net worth by $ 132.2 billion to $ 159.7 billion, making him the world’s second richest person, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
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Musk also said Starlink, SpaceX’s burgeoning space travel internet company, would likely be a candidate in its group to go public once revenue growth becomes “ fairly predictable, ” echoing similar comments made by the company’s president to investors earlier this year.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. has already launched more than 240 satellites to build Starlink, President Gwynne Shotwell said at a private investor event in February.
Listing would give investors the opportunity to buy into one of the most promising activities within the tight-knit company. “Right now we’re a privately held company, but Starlink is the right kind of business that we can do and make public,” she said at the time.
Investors had limited ways to own a piece until now SpaceX, which has become one of the most highly regarded venture capital companies in the US due to the dominance of the commercial rocket industry.
In addition to a contract from NASA for a version of its next-generation spacecraft that can land astronauts on the moon in 2024, SpaceX also has an agreement with a Japanese entrepreneur for a private flight around the moon in 2023. And it will. ready to launch its first Starship flight to Mars in 2026, Musk said earlier this month.
– With help from Dana Hull