How is this legal to just say anything to pump up the stock price?
Saying things that impact the stock price is a normal part of being the CEO. EX: Drug X failed/passed clinical trials.
The limitation is on manipulation of the stock price more so than simply releasing information.
Sure, so long as he isn't misleading shareholders - and that generally requires fraudulent filings. I'd say that he is much safer pumping the stock than he was, almost exactly a year ago, when he very publicly stated that he thought the stock was overvalued.
It depends on if he actually is considering privitising at $420. Stock manipulation requires an "artificial" price.
Can anyone explain to me why having a predetermined higher price would be a trigger to make the company private? Surely the lower the better as you are essentially getting the same asset, “Tesla”, for the capital used to make it private.
You need to get current shareholders to sell their stock.
To buy an entire company, you always need to pay a premium over the current market cap. The market price is lower than any existing shareholder is willing to sell for because if they were willing to sell for less than that price, they would have already sold it. For some of the shareholders, the lowest price they would be willing to sell for would be much higher than the market price.