Tesla Inc chief executive Elon Musk said it is “impossible” to take the company private, even though he would have liked to spend more time on innovation.
“Tesla public company duties are a much bigger factor, but going private is impossible now,” Musk said in response to a tweet saying that he should optimize his time in areas such as innovation.
“Engineering, design & general company operations absorb vast majority of my mind & are the fundamental limitation on doing more,” Musk wrote on Twitter.
Tesla shares, which were included in the S&P 500 index this week, have surged eightfold this year ahead of the addition to the benchmark measure. The gain is twice the advance of the next best performer on the gauge.
The share price jump also created millionaires among its investors and propelled Musk’s net worth by US$132.2 billion to US$159.7 billion, making him the world’s second-richest person, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Musk also said that Starlink Inc, Space Exploration Technologies Corp’s (SpaceX) budding space Internet business, would likely be a candidate in his group for an initial public offering (IPO) once its revenue growth becomes “reasonably predictable,” echoing similar comments by SpaceX to investors earlier this year.
The company has already launched more than 240 satellites to build out Starlink, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell said at a private investors’ event in February.
A listing would give investors a chance to buy into one of the most promising operations within the closely held company.
“Right now, we are a private company, but Starlink is the right kind of business that we can go ahead and take public,” she said.
Investors have had limited ways to own a piece of SpaceX, which has become one of the most richly valued venture-backed companies in the US by dominating the commercial rocket industry.
In addition to a contract from NASA for a version of its next-generation Starship spacecraft that might be able to land astronauts on the moon in 2024, SpaceX also has an agreement with a Japanese entrepreneur for a private flight around the moon in 2023.
SpaceX would be ready to launch its first Starship flight to Mars in 2026, Musk said earlier this month.
Three experts in the high technology industry have said that US President Donald Trump’s pledge to impose higher tariffs on Taiwanese semiconductors is part of an effort to force Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to the negotiating table. In a speech to Republicans on Jan. 27, Trump said he intends to impose tariffs on Taiwan to bring chip production to the US. “The incentive is going to be they’re not going to want to pay a 25, 50 or even a 100 percent tax,” he said. Darson Chiu (邱達生), an economics professor at Taichung-based Tunghai University and director-general of
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