/biz/ - Business & Finance

Rate my theory /smg/

Musk makes the announcement on Twitter because it's his preferred form, and because it would generate hype much faster than a normal email.
Why generate hype? Most companies slow-roll on their buyout efforts to keep the costs down. Unless... he wanted the price to spike and he needed to make it happen fast. Barely an hour before that announcement, articles from the Financial Times said Saudis bought <5% stake in Musk. That just happens to be under the amount they legally have to report. The only reason we seem to know it was Saudis is through leaks from "knowledgable people". Saudis have an explicit goal to diversify and have funded electric vehicle companies in the past. Maybe the Saudis are his "secured funds" source. Maybe this deal is a way for the Saudis to solve Musk's debt problem/secure their oil future by controlling EV's future. They get a big equity stake, Musk gets to avoid all the public trading headaches and avoids the risk of crashing before they can pay off any debt.

If Musk made the price jump right after that leaked, he may have done it to keep the big money in the U.S. from buying up a big stake and price-gouging him with a "no" vote to the $420 figure, since they know the Saudis can foot the bill.