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Elon Musk Makes $82 Billion Gambit to Silence Tesla Critics

Electric-car maker’s CEO shocks market with take-private plan
Calls being public distracting, cites ‘enormous pressure’

Jamie Albertine, Consumer Edge Research senior automotive analyst, discusses Tesla possibly going private.Source: Bloomberg)

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By Dana Hull and Claire Boston

August 8, 2018 at 12:00 AM UTC

Updated on

August 8, 2018 at 10:09 AM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

The wild tweet hit Wall Street at precisely 12:48 p.m. Tuesday -- and things just keep getting wilder.

Seemingly out of the blue, Elon Musk proclaimed that he might pull his money-losing Tesla Inc. off the market. Taking the electric-car company private at the price he touted would amount to an $82 billion valuation, a monumental sum that left many investors wondering: Is this a joke?