WELCOME

"I think it is a nice change that should make

Oct. 5, 2018 by Kimberly Parks

"I think it is a nice change that should make shareholders feel better about what they've been paid by Tesla as a public company," said Richard Stallman, CEO of the Silicon Valley-based startup he founded last year. "The fact that Tesla is making the same kinds of investments as the public market is a huge benefit to Tesla shareholders."

But the company's investors are worried about the potential of transparency in an industry where so many people use social media to help their families. Musk said Tesla's investors will need to make sure they are prepared to step forward if they want to win a private equity round.

"I'm not saying that you have to go around every corporate person telling them that they have to be super smart as well," Musk said. "You've got to tell them that you're going to do your part to get this company going—that they're going to get this project done, that it's going to work. That's the big problem."

Tesla's shareholders will also be concerned about whether it will end up becoming a public company, considering they have the same rights to its stock and its shares. Musk said he would like to avoid that.

"I would be happy to see a public company come to shareholders with a public offering," he said. "I would also like to see the public company that wants to be a public company have access to the full breadth of the assets that Tesla has and the full financial information that the company has to offer."

There is no definitive answer as to how Tesla might ultimately go public, but it seems like a good idea—especially given the company's history of raising public shares of its product. And the fact that Musk thinks shareholders would like to see a public offering could be good news for Tesla.

"It's nice to see where they are now," said Peter Neumann, president and CEO of OpenSecrets. "This is the first time that I think that they've really taken a risk on a company and their own stock, just to get some of the transparency into it. I think it's a great step forward. Now that they've done that, we have a greater opportunity to see them go public, and I think it's going to help them to be able to get more transparency into the public markets. And I think they should."

In a followup tweet, Musk wrote, "I have a feeling that some of my colleagues have had the same view over and over again. I know that my colleagues have. We have so