Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund may buy an electric car maker
competing with Tesla in the luxury car segment, Reuters reports,
citing unnamed sources. According to them, the talks between PIF and Lucid, a
private company based in California, are private and may not lead to a deal
in the end.
However, if they do, PIF could become a majority shareholder in Lucid for
US$1 billion. PIF would pay half at the completion of the deal, while the
other half will be divided into two installments, dependent on Lucid
achieving specific production milestones.
If the talks do lead to a deal, this would jeopardize the plans of Tesla’s
chief executive Elon Musk to take the company private with the help of Saudi
money—plans that he recently shared on Twitter, which caused the latest media
frenzy along with an SEC probe into whether his “funding secured” statement
about the plan was founded on fact.
Musk said he had plans to take Tesla private at a price of US$420 per
share. When pressed by the media and financial market regulators, the CEO
revealed he had been in talks with PIF for a couple of years, and the fund’s
managers had made it clear to him the final decision was his. Related:
This Tech Giant Is Pushing For Blockchain Adoption
Now that PIF may be negotiating another deal, Musk could be hard pressed
to find the US$72 billion to take Tesla private, although he said probably
two-thirds of current Tesla shareholders would stay with the company when it
goes private, if it does. Saudi Arabia’s PIF is among these shareholders,
after amassing a stake close to 5 percent.
The negotiations with Lucid show Saudi Arabia’s growing interest in
electric vehicles as it seeks to diversify its economy away from oil. The
Fremont company has not yet started mass producing vehicles, but two years
ago it released a prototype for a luxury sedan, the Lucid Air, which comes with
a price tag of US$100,000. Mass production was slated to begin by the end of
this year.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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