Musk: Saudis will provide funding for Tesla buyout

ELON MUSK has said he expects Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund to provide the cash for his Tesla buyout plan, throwing into question his claims last week that funding for the deal was “secured” in a move likely to prompt scrutiny from US regulators.

The billionaire chief executive said he had been approached by the Saudi fund “multiple times about taking Tesla private”, stretching back to the beginning of 2017 when it had first expressed interest.

He said, following the Saudi fund’s decision to buy almost 5pc of the electric carmaker’s stock, he had met with its managing director on July 31. He said: “I understood from him that no other decision makers were needed and that they were eager to proceed.”

He added: “This is why I referred to ‘funding secured’ in the Aug 7 announcement.” Mr Musk said he was continuing to have discussions with the Saudi fund and other investors. The comments come less than a week after Mr Musk first announced his plan to take Tesla private on Twitter, writing that he was “considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured”.

The post caused shares in Tesla to spike, up 11pc that day, although those gains had been largely wiped out by the end of the week.

Reports emerged last week that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was looking into whether funds had in fact been “secured” prior to the post. If there is no documentation backing those claims up, Mr Musk and Tesla could be at risk of civil and criminal penalties. Tesla has not been accused of any wrongdoing by the SEC to date, however, and the inquiry into the company is said to be preliminary.