Tesla Motors on Tuesday defended its controversial plan to acquire “renewable energy” company SolarCity Corp, painting it as a financially smart move toward a more environmentally friendly future.
Combining the two companies would have “significant financial benefits,” adding more than US$500 million in cash to Tesla’s balance sheet in the three years ahead, the US company said.
Tesla forecast that SolarCity would contribute US$1 billion in revenue to the combined company next year alone.
Tesla last month said that four lawsuits have been lodged seeking to block its merger with the troubled solar panel installer.
Two of the suits filed in a Delaware court were backed by individual shareholders and the other two by pension funds representing public employees in Riviera Beach, California, and in Arkansas.
The litigation “could result in an injunction preventing the completion of the merger or a judgement resulting in the payment of damages,” Tesla said at the time.
Tesla Motors and SolarCity in June proposed a merger that Tesla says will expand the attractiveness of its car sales by creating a solution for car owners wanting a home solar system that supports their car and household energy needs.
The plan is in conjunction with a large battery factory Tesla is building
“The acquisition of SolarCity will create the world’s only integrated sustainable energy company, from energy generation to storage to transportation,” Tesla said in a release. “Energy needs to be sustainably generated, sustainable energy needs to be stored for later use, and sustainable energy needs to be used for transportation.”
Critics say the merger is in effect a bailout of a debt-laden solar-panel installer whose chairman, Elon Musk, is also the founder and main shareholder of Tesla.
Boards of both companies have agreed to the merger and are planning a general shareholders meeting on Nov. 17 to vote on the acquisition deal valued at US$2.6 billion.
Musk, who holds 21.1 percent of Tesla and 22.5 percent of SolarCity, will not be able to vote as a shareholder on the deal.
If the merger proposal is voted down, it would be a major setback for Musk’s vision of reducing climate changing emissions with a company that not only sells people electric cars, but is involved in generation and storage of solar energy that powers them.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day