Musk: Sentiment Was 'Please Don't Do This,' So We Won't

What started on Twitter has ended on the Tesla company blog. Elon Musk announced in a statement posted there late Friday night that the electric car maker would not in fact be going private. He writes, "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." And "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.'" The statement elaborates on his meetings with investment firms Silver Lake, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley, and Musk says his initial assertion that the funding was there was "reinforced."

But "after considering all these factors"—including institutional investors, who said internal rules limit how much they can put into a private company—"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 New York Times reports a very brief second statement issued by six of Tesla's directors says the special committee established to look into the feasibility of going private has now been dissolved; the statement also voices the board's "[full] support" for Musk. As for what Musk had to say on Twitter, he simply retweeted the company's tweet of his statement, adding the words, "Staying Public." (More Elon Musk stories.)