Elon Musk, chief executive of both publicly traded Tesla and privately held SpaceX, said in a blog post Tuesday that he does not have any intention "to merge SpaceX and Tesla."
The serial entrepreneur's comments come as he mulls plans to take Tesla private, revealed publicly at first through a series of tweets.
The two companies — one focused on producing batteries and electric vehicles and the other on building and launching rockets — will remain separate, according to Musk. In theory, if SpaceX had enough money, it could buy out Tesla's shares. SpaceX is one of the most valuable private companies in the world, valued most recently at an estimated $28 billion. SpaceX could – again, in theory – take Tesla private through a buyout, in a similar manner to Dell's acquisition of EMC in 2015. But Musk's target share price of $420 puts Tesla's worth at $71.3 billion, putting it out of reach of a takeover by SpaceX.
Instead, Tesla's move private would resemble the structure of SpaceX, he says, which has raised funding around every six months for the past three years.
"The structure envisioned for Tesla is similar in many ways to the SpaceX structure," Musk wrote.
Musk referred to "Fidelity's SpaceX investment" as an example of how Tesla shareholders would be able to trade shares even after it went private. Recent rounds of SpaceX investment have come through Fidelity and others, as the rocket venture raises funding in incremental amounts.
Read the segments regarding SpaceX in Elon Musk's Tesla blog post:
Second, my intention is for all Tesla employees to remain shareholders of the company, just as is the case at SpaceX. If we were to go private, employees would still be able to periodically sell their shares and exercise their options. This would enable you to still share in the growing value of the company that you have all worked so hard to build over time.
Third, the intention is not to merge SpaceX and Tesla. They would continue to have separate ownership and governance structures. However, the structure envisioned for Tesla is similar in many ways to the SpaceX structure: external shareholders and employee shareholders have an opportunity to sell or buy approximately every six months.