Elon Musk’s dream is dead. Less than three weeks after tweeting that he was taking Tesla private, and that he had secured funding to do so, Musk published a statement announcing that the electric car company would stay public after all.

It is, however, hard to back down from something that was never going to happen in the first place. Musk never had any funding for his plan, as his letter made clear. He had not discussed going private with Tesla’s board or informed the company’s investors. His own idea of “going private” appeared to be a strange fantasy—a hybrid of public and private that ultimately added up to Musk never having to take earnings calls, while retaining all the benefits of staying public, like maintaining access to capital markets and a diversified shareholder base.



Fantasy or not, Musk has found himself in hot water because of his now notorious tweet. The Securities and Exchange Commission is reportedly investigating him for possible securities fraud. Many investors are angry and could sue the company. The statement on Friday was an attempt to minimize the potential consequences of Musk’s rash actions. His decision to keep Tesla public may quell the controversy he’s brought on himself, but his statement—and reports circulating about his behind-the-scenes decision-making—point to more trouble ahead.



If there’s one message in Musk’s letter it’s this: He is listening. He is listening to Silver Lake, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley, the financial advisers that made it clear how difficult it would be to take the company private. He’s listening to shareholders, who would have lost their stakes in the company in a privatization drive. He’s listening to the board of directors, who were in the dark about Musk’s plans.



Musk being Musk, however, didn’t apologize or acknowledge that he might have erred. He even suggested that he did have the phantom funding to take Tesla private. “My belief,” he wrote, “that there is more than enough funding to take Tesla private was reinforced during this process.” Translation: “I could have done it, if I really wanted to.”

