Every bizarre thing that has happened since Elon Musk sent his 'funding secured' tweet about taking Tesla private (TSLA)

Elon Musk

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has attracted controversy for his statements about taking Tesla private, made public on August 7.
The announcement — which took a lot of people by surprise — started off a wild few weeks of speculation and accusation, with Musk at the center.
On August 24, Musk formally abandoned the go-private plan and said Tesla would remain a public company.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk shocked observers when he said on August 7 that he was thinking about taking the company private.

That plan came to an abrupt conclusion on August 24, when Musk and Tesla formally abandoned the idea, having whipped up a whirlwind that got the attention of everyone, including Wall Street regulators.

Here's what you need to know to make sense of the saga:

November 15, 2017: Elon Musk says in a Rolling Stone interview that he wishes Tesla was a private company.

"I wish we could be private with Tesla," Musk said in the interview. "It actually makes us less efficient to be a public company."

July 31, 2018: Musk claims he met with the managing director of Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund.

Musk claimed in a statement published on Tesla's website on Monday that he had a meeting with the managing director of Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund on July 31.

During this meeting, Musk claimed the director "expressed regret that I had not moved forward previously on a going private transaction with them, and he strongly expressed his support for funding a going private transaction for Tesla at this time. I understood from him that no other decision makers were needed and that they were eager to proceed."

"I left the July 31st meeting with no question that a deal with the Saudi sovereign fund could be closed, and that it was just a matter of getting the process moving," Musk said.

The Saudi sovereign fund did not respond to a request for comment.

August 1, 2018: Tesla reports second-quarter earnings amid fear the company is running out of cash.

Tesla reported an adjusted loss per share of $3.06 for the second quarter, which was larger than what analysts had predicted, and revenue of $4 billion, which beat analyst projections. Its cash burn, $739.5 million, was lower than analysts expected. The company said it expected to be profitable during the second half of 2018.

"Going forward, we believe Tesla can achieve sustained quarterly profits, absent a severe force majeure or economic downturn, while continuing to grow at a rapid pace," the company said.

During the company's earnings call, Musk apologized to Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. analyst Antonio Sacconaghi. During Tesla's first-quarter earnings call in May, Musk had referred to Sacconaghi's questions as "boring" and "boneheaded."

"I'd like to apologize for being impolite on the prior call. Honestly, I really think there's no excuse for bad manners, and I was kind of violating my own rule in that regard. There are reasons for it in that I had gotten no sleep, had been working 110-hour, 120-hour weeks, but nonetheless, there's still no excuse," Musk said during the second-quarter earnings call.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider