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Comment by take4 | Hacker News Reader

> CNBC reports that none of the Wall Street banks it contacted were aware of any transaction or had committed to funding a leveraged buyout of Tesla.

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Does that prove anything though? Let's imagine a bank is working on this deal; why would they tell a reporter? It's common for companies to deny things to the press even when they're true.

It's Wall Street and there would be rumors if someone was shopping the largest LBO ever. It's not like there are a lot of places you can go for this service, Tesla isn't going to back out on the deal because it leaked your bank has met with Elon.

Would there be rumors though, when improper disclosure could potentially be illegal and bring down the SEC on your head?

Also, even if there are rumors, why would that necessarily logically go from bankers talking to each other to immediately blabbing to the press?

It's rare for word of mega deals like this to not leak out in some fashion, doubly so after it's already been tweeted about by the CEO. If they had seriously been shopping this deal it would have already been in the WSJ. Considering the letter mentioned no funding I am under the impression that this is more of an Elon solo project and less of a serious undertaking by the company.

> Let's imagine a bank is working on this deal; why would they tell a reporter?

There is a difference between not telling a reporter and denying it to a reporter.

So there's the real story. Who is this financer (or group) with ~40 billion in capital that is willing to bet long on Tesla? That's really interesting to me, if Musk is being truthful here.

Fidelity or Google comes to mind. I think at some point they were having discussions with Google but then the company overcame the difficult conditions so they halted the talks: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/21/google-al...

Just guessing.

That could be Softbank. They already have $200 billion in investment lined up.

And apparently they are to some extent disillusioned investing in internet companies.

Totally, totally random thought, but I figured I'd record it, even though it doesn't seem to make sense.

Bezos?

I highly doubt it. For starters his wealth isn't liquid enough. He would need to give up shareholder control of Amazon or take on huge debt with his control of Amazon as collateral.

What, timed with an announcement of a merger between Blue Origin and SpaceX? :)

That wouldn't be the worst idea in the world considering the cost of spaceflight to begin with and the duplicate work they're undoubtedly doing.

I could be wrong, but I don't imagine Elon likes Bezos very much.

1. Apple 2. Saudi's 3. China

Google/Alphabet. Larry Page has stated that instead of giving away his billions to charity he would prefer to give it to someone like Musk that is trying to fix world scale problems.

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