Hyperdrive
Tesla to Pay $920 Million Bond as Musk Tweet Bars Stock Rise
- Shares failed to reach strike price for note due March 1
- Plenty of cash on hand to settle principal and interest
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Tesla Inc.’s share price was already nowhere near the necessary level to help convert its $920 million in bonds to stock. Elon Musk’s contentious tweets killed any last-minute hopes that a miracle rally was near.
His electric-car company is on the hook to settle the March 1 convertible bond maturity in cash, the largest debt payment to date in Tesla’s almost 16-year history. To make some of the payout using stock, the shares would have had to reach a volume-weighted average price of $359.87 for the 20-day trading period that began Jan. 29. The figure was about $306.91 as of Tuesday, the final day of that span.