will the board of directors take action and will elon musk potentially take a leave of absence? jim cramer after reading article today tweeted this out, devastating "new york times" piece filled with new facts. we know the safest thing for musk right now is a medical leave. i would insist on it so, who might replace ee long musk during the interview, he made this comment regarding a potential ceo replacement at tesla. by the way, he's not planning on leaving but he says, if you have anyone who can do a better job, please let me know they can have the job. is there someone who can do the job better a lot of news in that interview. a busy week for tesla and for elon musk. back to you. >> in the meantime, phil, in terms of the actual fundamentals of the company, we live in a vacuum, correct? >> correct. >> for a couple months at least. >> we do at i should point out, there have been a couple analysts putting out notes saying, look, we've been out to that plant out in fremont within the last, you know, few weeks and it looks like they are sustaining production above 5,000 model 3s pe

elon musk is extremely incentivized to do it. that is a personal preference. a ceo, given his personality, given the situation within this community, it would be great for elon to take the company private. but let's face it, if you are an investor in the company, there isn't that much value in being taken private. it would be like a downside in erms of liquidity. on top of that, the company would not benefit from anything tangible i could put in my company model in my forecast as a result of being taken private. pierre: i would give odds close to zero, to be honest. i remain very positive on the stock price. i think tesla is at a turning point, turning the model three into an industrial reality. i don't think that this has wings. elon musk is extremely incentivized to do it. that is a personal preference. as a ceo, given his personality, given the situation within this community, it would be great for elon to take the company private. but let's face it, if you are an investor in the company, there isn't that much value in being taken private. it would be like

you're buying elon musk.e did what he did on the call, then followed up with some crazy tweets out of thailand suggested that elon might have lost the touch. that is why the hedge funds have been short, whether chanos or anybody else. from my point of view musk is saying you know what, i don't need this anymore? i don't want to have to explain myself to the public every three months. you know, it makes all the sense he would try to do this. >> i agree with your end point, but i want to make it clear with chanos, i have been following this, i know jim a little bit, i think he was short fundamentally on the stock. >> i think you're right. >> i don't think he was short elon. the pile-on effect did occur when he, elon musk basically had put out tweets saying lynnette lopez was being paid by the shorts. he did say that in these tweets. they were crazy. there is no sub assistant i ages to it. that led a lot of web funds to sign on to it. that he is losing it. i see people getting upset about short sellers they say

longtime friends of elon musk, early adventures saying yay, my hero, i am so happy. on twitter. >> talk to us about how you get of -- we spokeon to an analyst in the last hour and said he had a price target , that it was not completely out of the question. but shares were halted around the 360 mark even after a 7% gain. what do you think of a number and anything else that can be gleaned? >> there is a lot of speculation that it is a joke about marijuana. 420 is a well-known number. in that community. they thought tesla deserve a higher valuation. previous earnings calls coming talked about the come any eventually having evaluation arriving at apple, thinking about look -- autopilot, solar, utility contracts. he has big dreams for the company. the burden of being the ceo of a publicly traded company weighed a bit on him. he has the vantage point of running to company simultaneously, one public and one private. i think question is how much money does he need to get there. is the report about saudi arabia? >> as pointed out to me earlier, musk talked to me -- has been ta

ramy: trying to do all the things elon musk is doing begs the question on whether he has enough moneya, europe, the crossover, the roadster, the semitruck. $10 billion is what goldman sachs says he needs, but mr. musk says we will not be raising equity. david: he may not be raising equity but he has been going out into the debt markets or going out to the banks for long term loan facility. the equity holders might be ok, but i would argue you will find the funding gap will have to be filled from somewhere. one of us will have to ask what are the terms demanded in the event these are commercial bank loans that are coming in, or whether he is going back to the fixed income market or the fixed income market will want to have comfortable features? there are convertible features on the let -- the debts and loans being raised. to your point, he says china will use a loan to fund the giga factory with local debt. we will leave it there, always great to have you. -- arch bloomberg users can interact with charts shown using gtv . you can browse recent charts featured on tv, catch up on an

twitter and elon musk, elon musk must be followed by 20 million people.ock is up 12%. >> how many people follow elon musk? generally when companies release this type of announcement, michael dell is the last major company that i remember going private in this way. liz: he's got 22.3 million followers. >> usually do it through a press release put on the website so everybody in the world can see it. obviously if the sec thinks there's an issue with fair disclosure, that's one of the disclosure rules that say everybody must get the information at the same time. i think what elon musk's lawyers would say listen this guy is widely known. liz: can we take a shot on the computer. we've got the blog that he had said he would now post, and the company now has a taking tesla private blog. we're going to take a shot of this for you. >> that's what this have been -- the problem with that, liz, is that what i think people might say and it's already getting out there is that is what should have been put out immediately. not his tweet. again, he goes to 20 million peopl

elon musk is extremely incentivized to do it. that is a personal preference. as a ceo, given his personality, given the situation within this community, it would be a great for elon to take the company private. but let's face it, if you are an investor in the company, there isn't that much value in being taken private. it would be like a downside in terms of liquidity. on top of that, the company would not benefit from anything tangible i could put in my company model in my forecast as a result of being taken private. it's important to put all these things in perspective against each other. i think what happened is that, a couple of weeks ago elon musk had conversations with investors. on the back of that, he started thinking about a plan to kate -- take the company private, then he tweeted the idea. then he relies his tweets were -- realized his tweets were -- he started a communication campaign. the interview with "the new york times" last friday was part of that, trying to increase his chances to defend himself against these liabilities. i think he is now tr

we should be ready by now, to see thisnow, from elon musk.he question of course is, at what point does a regulator look at the outside of the normal bounds of reality. but i think we should not be surprised at his comments at this stage because we have heard so many of them. we have heard him complain many .imes >> to go back to what remained had mentioned as well, do you think tesla deserves a premium? 420 is a long way from the current 347 and away from your price target of 250. >> for us, we will go through a phase of between two and five or tesla will need a much judgment more capital. musk refuses to raise equity, understand that he does not want to raise capital in this situation, but at the same time, we look to the growth as being insufficient to fund the business. he is in a situation where he needs capital to aspire to that premium valuation. we think tesla will probably be for a number of years, a low-margin and low return on investment capital. what keeps the valuation a high level is the expectation of growth. right now, the prob

like elon musk.d in a blog post announcing his intention is that he didn't think that tesla would be for ever in public markets. he said once it hit a period of sustained steady growth he would consider returning to the bulls and bears are wall street. —— would be forever other public markets. the social media firm snap beat analyst revenue forecasts as it drew in more international and small business advertisers but posted a wider—than—expected quarterly loss. a major redesign isjust one reason it's been struggling to keep up with other social media platforms like facebook, instagram and twitter which has recently seen something of a turnaround. snap has told us that it made a loss of $353 million in the three months to the end ofjune. that was more than expected. another important number is how many daily active users it's main product, snap, attracted. it fell to 188 million during a controversial major resdesign. it's the first time ever snap has seen a decline in numbers. but advertisers aren't

i would also point this out in just the last couple of moments or so another tweet came out with elon musk saying in response to a question saying basically, yes, liquidity events would be limited like in spacex if the question was could we still invest in tesla once it goes private yes, musk says, but liquidity would be limited to every six months or so 2:08 p.m. eastern time the last time they put shares in trading out there. elon musk just tweeting out a response we will tell you when this story comes to a head when the actual announcement comes up. but let's not forget prior to this tweet storm that was setoff the shares actually traded above where they were halted right now because of a financial times report saying that sources familiar say that the saudi private investment fund has taken a stake upwards of nearly 5% possibly in those share and that's what propelled those shares up more than 8.5% at one point, and then of course the tweet storm from elon musk came out. back over to you >> and the author of that financial times report will be joining us in just a couple minutes. befor

elon musk likes to use twitter.r: there is a terminal function that can track all things twitter on the bloomberg. we are tracking twitter sentiment. in the top line, the share price. in blue, the number of tweets that mention tesla. i have positive and negative sentiment. you can see here tuesday around noon, 1:00 p.m., elon musk started tweeting about the company, that he perhaps secured funding. you saw a big rise in the share price. then, a few days later, it started to turn negative -- negative in sentiment, whether funding was really happening and if there could be an sec inquiry. there was a correlation between the share price and twitter. carol: it shows people love to use twitter to talk about musk. jason: from musk to bezos. we looked at the amazon market share. carol: last year amazon captured about 5% of american retail spending. jason: is that a lot? it depends on how you look at it. >> 5% is roughly the share of total u.s. retail sales that amazon is responsible for, the products that it sells to ameri

the ceo elon musk sounds very positive.e a look at the stock after hours, we see a big pop higher. lots of focus on the model three. they are on pace for 5000 of the model threes produced each week. if they get to 7000, that is where there was the sustained probability. -- we even heard 10,000 per week. interestingly, he said that as they get more model three south there, there could be a viral force that the customers are the best salespeople. he direct delivered a car to a customer on sunday and the customer had never even set in it. their goal is to get more of these in showrooms for test drives. right now, very orderly and upbeat conference call for tesla. emily: all right, abigail doolittle. thanks for breaking that down. second-quarter numbers are in and they are ahead of the wireless pack when it comes to adding new customers. they added one million subscribers in the quarter. impressive when you consider the four major u.s. wireless subscribers added a total of 1.8 million. that's including t-mobile. on the investor

is elon musk a benefit to tesla? >> yes no doubt i think if he were out, the cold stock and the levitation that the stock has had on the visionary, you know status of elon musking deflate very quickly. >> he's launched the company and he's done the heavy lifting. >> he's an amazing businessman and he's done the hard work and now many would argue car companies are among the most difficult. >> and they need an operations person >> if the answer to that question is brian, if all of that is where all of the critical value is. i think you're right, karen. i'm not disagreeing with you and that would be a major concern to me. >> as a reminder, elon musk if you're watching cnbc we're not a call-in show, but we'll take your call. coming up, the sharing economy showdown we'll talk how the unicorn's like dan's uber are giving the publicly traded companies a run for their money plus jack playing defense. ahead of an apology good, but is he doing more harm than good uaimlways, live from tes sqre much more fast right after this. a

for five days, tesla survived without elon musk on the factory floor. musk's relentless work ethic be defended? i want to bring in ashlee vance, who wrote the bio on elon musk. you have seen all signs of elon musk. is see comingic off analysts on an erlang -- on ambienings call musk, musk. is this new? ashlee: in some ways, it is new and in some ways it is not. if you go back in his history, in 2008, it was really a crisis sort of like where we are at. the future was uncertain, and elon arguably was under as much pressure as he is no. he would do the same things. he would give his employees a hard time. he went after the press that was bagging on tesla. i think he was not as famous back then. companies were not as successful, so there was not as much attention on this. this time you have elon on twitter. this was the first time the public has seen all sides of the elon that only his employees and family used to see before you tesla the in this huge success. there is a what more pressure on him. -- a lot more pressure on him. i think it is this public cr

♪ >> tesla jumps as elon musk plots a different route.e might take the company private at $420 a share. >> shares up 11%, his 61 character tweet boosting his fortune over $1 billion. profitsnwealth bank's come to an end amid higher costs and fallout from a money laundering scandal. >> disappointment from disney. despite the incredible's and the avengers, third quarter earnings went off-script. >> hello from sydney, just after 8:00 a.m. you are watching daybreak australia. two hours away from the opening of the first asian major markets. >> i am ramy inocencio. over the next hour, we will look the action in australia will play into the asia-pacific trading day. it was confident, but whether that is a question of being well placed or misplaced as u.s.-china tensions continue is the question. 0.3%, shy 15 points of a new record high. the nasdaq up similarly here. the big story, especially in the u.s. afternoon trading was tesla. let's talk more about that. tesla, just a fraction of a percent under 11% for the pop. the big news is that it cou

emily: what could that mean for elon musk personally? jail time?t is possible, that is fraudibility, and with comes the possibility of jail time, as well as fines. fines are generally the means that the doj takes more often than jail time, but it is a possibility. emily: that was theresa goody. up, the u k-based fashionace for high-end far-fetched have confirmed plans to go public on the nyse. we will look at the year of tech ipos so far. this is bloomberg. ♪ ♪ face aapple and google brewing revolt over the apps store text. too say they are charging much. netflix is one of the companies trying to bypass the app stores. it could put a dent in apple and google's profits. we are halfway through the year and we have seen a number of tech companies hit the public market. dropbox, spotify, making their debuts. number of tech ipos in the united states will return to levels not seen since the miniboom in 2013 and 2014. how well the rest of the year play out? jackie kelly and alex barinka weighed in. >> technology in particular has been exceedingly active,

elon musk. we reported in our story that musk was aware of the saudi stake.o it wasn't a surprise to him he knew they were a shareholder. but our reaction to the story was, you know, the stock would probably go up but his reaction to come out with a tweet after not commenting when we went to him for comment, that unleashed a chain of events we did not expect >> the nuance, this was a secondary market transaction, so this was not a fund raised by tesla. they took the stake in the open market they built up that stake also this speaks to this idea that elon musk says he has funding secured for a possible buyout of the company. is there an indication that it could be the saudis or a group of other people out there who will pony up that money to take tesla private? >> it's possible cnbc and the ft both reported it looks like nobody on wall street was aware of this. how do you do a mega lbo without wall street being aware. that's a bit of a question that we'll have to resolve in coming days yes. the saudis have discussed this wi since making the big uber investment

now there's this move by elon musk arguing that perhaps tesla should be taken private.this move likely to effect, if at all, tesla's supply chain, its relationship with suppliers, efforts to get more profitable in the near term >> i think they're separate from each other, jon. whatever tesla is doing on the operation side of the business, for the most part will be fairly insulated from the board room drama, if you will, and whether or not this is a public or private company. having said that, there is an aspect of the operations of tesla that could impact the decisions of the board or major shareholders in the future, and it comes down to the performance of the company relative to profitability, relative to raising capital, relative to cash burn. let's make some assumptions. assume they do fantastic in the next six months. elon musk would say look, with the operation side of the company is doing great, this is the way we should go forward on the flip side, what happens if they do not perform up to expectations what happens if tesla has to do a bigger capital raise than

goldman sachs have been there for elon musk four years. they have worked with him and tesla through all the additional share sales and given money to the man himself. they are willing to back him in these efforts. emily: goldman and must have relationship. how much money has goldman made off of musk and how much more could they make if this private deal goes through? helped lead of about $200 billion worth of share sales. the deals to take this private are significantly higher, $30 million-$50 million. made from they equity market share sale. it does seem like they have had this guy's back for a while. there was also a sanford bernstein note about the odds of a successful private deal are less than 50%. raig: it does feel like it is a difficult thing to do, to give odds. within the last few days, a venture company has put the odds greater than 50%. it is a guessing game. so, despite the fact that we are nine or 10 days in since this initial tweet. a formalt sent proposal to his board. there was the impression with his initial post that thi

galileo: no, this is why i am a huge fan of elon musk.and said that private shareholders would have the option to hold, which is unusual. i was not expecting that. but when i heard that, it validates that elon musk wants to give back to the people who supported him since day one and will allow us to be in the company. scarlet: what do you think about the report, according to the financial times, that saudi arabia has taken a $2 billion stake in tesla, anywhere from 2%-5%, and that softbank has held talks with elon musk as well? maybe a possible investment there, what is your reaction? galileo: i think there is a fallacy that tesla cannot raise money, when i think the opposite is the case. they have a ton of options from people who want to invest in saudi arabia validates it. so if they do go private, partnering with one private entity is an option to back all of it, and have them be a strategic partner. softbank makes a lot of sense. google tried to get tesla in 2013. the other strategy would be splitting up the ownership, giving a little

elon musk speaking on the earnings call right now. 'lte's he going to say wel ll you when we come back on "fast." >>> welcome back to "fast money," shares of express scripts volatile in the after-hours session after reporting earnings this after carl icahn is taking aim at the company's merger with cigna. we'll get to our meg terrell with the latest. >> express scripts did report the second-quarter earnings and they look like a non-event when you look at the bombshell dropped by carl icahn. he's reportedly had express scripts $54 billion this being reported by the wall street journal. the journal reporting he may seek to influence other investors and encouraging them to also vote against the deal. reportedly the issue with it is the price was too high it was worth $96 per express script shares. you can also see that express scripts has not traded up to that amount. it's $74 a share right now and about a 20% delta from when the deal was announced in addition to the price issue that icahn reportedly has with the deal, there are a couple

tesla is elon musk. people are betting on him. he needs to find that partner who is that adult in the room to take over the day-to-day, to say no, you can't be on twitter. that is is not an easy thing to do. kind of like taming a feral cat. melissa: will he listen to that person. maybe that is why. cheryl: didn't want to do it. the hubris, he started talking about how he woke up with his rocker girlfriend. later on, i have no life, i have no friends. back up to that other part where you have -- i mean, you know. >> all the details make me a little nervous about his ability right now to operate a motor vehicle or an electric vehicle to say nothing produces of them at scale. melissa: jack you bring the jokes to higher level on this show. i love it. thank you, guys. david: we met his mother. she is fantastic. beautiful, smart woman. melissa: very calm. might be the adult in the room. i think we solved it. david: that's it. call the mother. stunning new report on china's military. the pentagon says they believe pilots could be trainin

secondly, i think the private company, elon musk, he's less skrut niced. i think the company having shareholders in a private scenario are worse off given the fact that there will be less scrutiny on him under a private regime they don't have to deal with the headaches that he has to deal with and the frustration that we've seen over the earnings calls and he goes after the analysts and saw the rest of that and i would assume that that's why over the last couple of years he's been talking about hey, i'll bring this thing or we should bring this thing private. the interesting aspect of this is you see the 420 call. there are spreads, and i'll one of them who decided, at least i know a risk reward i know exactly what my risk is it's what money i've put out there to buy my call spread and that's as much as i can lose if it goes to 200 like this thing can drop out of bed and you can only lose what we put out there and that's the one approach to have in a scenario like this, and of course, the sec issue and that could be something that would steer off any of th

we will talk a little more about elon musk later in the show.nted to chew on this other breaking story of the day. chris collins republican from new york arrested and facing securities fraud charges today. he and his son accused of engaging in insider trading in the stock of a biotech company based in australia. he's on the yours at this company could the southern district of new york is prosecuting this case. prosecutors about to hold a news conference with more details. harvey, this brings up a number of interesting issues in terms of members of congress and their involvement to private companies. commerce and commons on the yours gets an e-mail from the ceo argues that a congressional nick at the white house of all places and is alleged to have called his son, told him about a trial, a drug trial that is failed. the sun still the next day in tips off some other people. if all those things are true and can be proven. it brings up some issues about congressman collins and other members of congress and how involved they are with companies, confl

and they think he's going to change the world and you might short tesla, i would never short elon muskight have a shot at pulling this off >> i would never not short elon, even the shorts in tesla, are not shorting what tesla is doing or even it's long-term potential. they're really shorting the gain in public. whether or not that capital exists on whether to go private, it would allow them to streamline for example, spacex would be a public company. it's biddi ibuilding rockets, a certainly there's a high degree of uncertainty there, but the potential for there to be a payout is there, and we have enough private market and enough large format investors which means that being private is straight forward, but going private wouldn't be straight forward at all >> elon musk may be the reason he may be able to pull it off. he may be able to cobble together this vast store of mets -- methods >> we have never seen anything like elon musk that's my point. >> i think of ross gerber on "power lunch" just yesterday who do agree with that >> stock's are up. thank you, guys, what a story. >>> disne

we spoke with the author of the best-selling elon musk biography. if you go back in tesla'sistory and history, in 2008 at was a crisis that was like now where the future of the company was uncertain, it is going towards bankruptcy, and elon is under as much pressure as he was back then. he would give his employees a really hard time. he went after the press. he was not as famous back then. companies were not as successful so there was not as much attention on all this. this time around you have elon on twitter. this is the first time the public has seen all sides of him. you have tesla being this huge success and now there is a lot more pressure on him. it is kind of this public crucible that is very strange to witness. emily: there is also the level of untruthfulness that he seems to be walking right into, not only tweeting something that could have been untruthful that funding was secured when it appears it was not, saying he dashed in and out of his brother's wedding, when his tweets show he did not do just that. how concerning is that? ashlee: i

connell: breaking news on tesla from elon musk tweet we told you about. ore than 6% with musk talking about maybe taking tesla private. we'll get into it right after this. ♪ a hotel can make or break a trip. and at expedia, we don't think you should be rushed into booking one. that's why we created expedia's add-on advantage. now after booking your flight, you unlock discounts on select hotels right until the day you leave. ♪ add-on advantage. discounted hotel rates when you add on to your trip. only when you book with expedia. retail. under pressure like never before. and it's connected technology that's moving companies forward fast. e-commerce. real time inventory. virtual changing rooms. that's why retailers rely on comcast business to deliver consistent network speed across multiple locations. every corporate office, warehouse and store near or far covered. leaving every competitor, threat and challenge outmaneuvered. comcast business outmaneuver. streaming must see tv has never been easier. paying for things is a breeze. and getting into new places i

elon musk said funding secured, was funding secured?elon musk is said to have held talks about softbank investing in tesla, including potentially taking the electric carmaker private. >> me know that ultimately, the way they played out was elon doesn't want to lose control of the company, so softbank wasn't happy with the way it was going to be split. that was really the hurdle they were unable to overcome. emily: softbank has an enormous piggy bank and likes investing in tech. if you take them off the table, who is left? >> there are others, of course. we haven't heard other funds connected to it at all, and bloomberg has spoken to 35 investment banks. none of them had an inkling of any kind of investment. it makes it highly unlikely there is someone lined up, frankly. >> what may happen next with tesla? >> the latest that happened is the board is going to meet with advisers next week to figure out what they should do next. whenever there is a leveraged buyout plan or an offer to buy a company, the board has to make sure the interests

elon musk is elaborating on what sparked his move to take tesla private. the electric car maker c.e.o. said the key to the gambit was the interest shown by saudi arabia's sovereign wealth fund. musk says the saudis approached him almost two years ago about taking tesla off the market. the fund recently bought an almost 5% stake. for more i want to bring in oppenheimer senior analyst, collin rush. also with us in new york is max. max, i want to start off with you. elon says he's continuing these talks with the saudi fund, that he's also talking to other large shareholders. do we have any idea who the large shareholders are and how far along these talks are? >> no. we have no idea about anything. i think there's sort of even with the information that came out this morning from elon musk's blog post, you know, there's sort of a wide range of possibilities that could have happened. we know that there was some kind of concrete conversation between the saudis and elon musk, i believe on july 31. that timing is pretty tight for a buyout. we don't know if they talk

short your stock, the better position you have, the more buyers you have in waiting. >> i wonder if elon muskom mark cuban, i doubt it >> but the point is this is musk being musk >> and he's also raising cash, mr. cuban. interesting the point on turkey, i don't think it's going away anytime soon for turkey. >> especially because there's an action plan nobody knows about >> but the markets outside turkey not too put off by it >> well, at least in the u.s. we have to watch the emerging markets because that's where things tend to spread. we saw a big drop in the south african currency we saw that in the financial crisis of 1997 >>> time now for the cnbc news update >> here's what's happening at this hour, everyone. the baltimore police officer who resigned after getting caught on video punching a man had a run in with that man before in june. the victim was charged with assaulting that officer. assault charges are now being considered against the former officer. >>> michael, the florida man who shot and killed a man in a dispute over a parking spot has been charged with manslaughter the confront

it is all about elon musk, taking tesla private. $66 billion to complete the transaction. who are his backers? that is a question for the market. anna: really interesting conversation at the start of the hour. our most read story on the bloomberg terminal -- the papa john's pizza company founder comes out swinging after the chains earnings missed. says itp administration will raise tariffs on chinese goods. find out more about those stories on the bloomberg terminal. let's stay with that tesla story because the stocks soared, $7 billion in value was created. he said he is considering taking the company private. $420 per share. bloomberg spoke to analysts and investors, who painted a mixed picture about the billionaire's revelation. >> it does not economically make sense for him. in the stands that the company is in, it does not make sense because he is in a growth stage. companies go private that are usually in a mature stage, and they are generating significant cash, but the shares usually are not getting a valuation that shows the

elon musk wants to take his company private.ost people we talked to think it is not going to happen. in fact, there is a zero chance. how does that play into the current dynamics we are seeing? is there enough money to even fund a buyout of that size? michal: the answer is, over the last couple of years, we have seen lbo's of all sizes that i would say a record levels. we saw the buyout of the mc, -- vmc, we have seen thompson rotor , so capital is there. company,ng 20% of the you have employees or other investors willing to roll over, that will be a whole needing to be plugged. i see there are some in a more questions beyond capital. i will tell you capital is a question, not the question. emily: what are the odds you would give such a deal happening? michal: given -- i can't comment on that given i am in tech bank and -- banking. i think there are a lot of obstacles out there. i wouldn't put -- i would never say never. today, i would put them rather the -- rather low. emily: what other the pros and cons of giving another entit

is what elon musk saying on social media irresponsible joining us on the news line is jeff sonnenfeldhool of business he is also a cnbc contributor. what say you, jeff is musk acting responsibly or a little less than that? >> tyler, you know he is acting responsibly if your peer group is britney spears that's fine. as a 19-year-old pop star in 2000 she came out with oops, i did it again and that's what he is doing. if he were serious about this -- okay, maybe he is because a little summary you guys gave in terms of the eight tweets following from the earlier one in the last few minutes. it's something like he is putting on the image of this being serious. but nobody looking at privatization dangles this way and does this sort of teasing dance of choreography. somebody only does this when they are trying to distract with a shiny new thing. who does that sound like. >> it's a brave new world, whether in politics or business it would appear in how you communicate to various constituencies and twitter obviously has become a -- a focal point of that do you suspect that mr. -- i almost said

jump sparked by the midday tweet from elon musk saying he's considering taking tesla private. musk later issued a statement saying a final decision hasn't yet been made. a reason for doing this is about creating the environment for

what are they doing to curtail elon musk?ed about his ambien use, that just came out today in the new york times. >> neil: what did you make of that new york times interview, most difficult year of my life, blah, blah, blah. >> that goes back to, listen, he owns 20% of the company. at a certain point, something has to be done. i don't think he'll leave the company. i do believe they'll take aware his chairmanship of the board. i think they'll install somebody who can run and address the pro production issues. would you lend tesla money? >> not at all. what they need is they need a mo holly, they need someone who knows how to make cars and to make an operation run smoothly and eventually. what they need is a chief operating officer, maybe stepping aside from the chairmanship. bottom line is that the scary thing for tesla at this point is how much will the board actually be able to decide? because some of his tweets, some of the things that he has done could cross the line into stock market manipulation. >> neil: assuming he do

>> think it makes sense in elon musk's mind.ns a spacex and things are going -- at least they are more stable than they are at tesla. you could see why applying a similar structure to tesla makes sense. spacex's structure is similar to uber and other privately held venture companies. the problem is the rocket business is a lot different from the car business. spacex has a lot of revenue. each of these launches costs 62 million dollars. once you open the gates and let people in, which tesla did, there are all sorts of complications. one obvious one is the tesla employs a lot of people. they will not be thrilled to have their liquidity taken away. they will not have as much freedom to sell their shares. being public is really good if you have capital. it's what you want to do. it makes it easier and cheaper to raise money. emily: unless, apparently, you are elon musk. thank you. we will continue to follow this. i am sure there will be much more to chew on next week. after about five years at the company, doug steele is heading bac

they have to do this without having any details or full proposal from elon musk because elon musk has not officially secured funding despite the fact he said so, he has not provided any details yet. he said on monday that was too premature to do so. this comes after mr. musk tweeted last week that he would take the company private at $420 a share. you saw the stock price jump up and plummet. there has been a roller-coaster the last little week or so. on monday, elon musk mentioned he had saudi arabia,ed saudi arabia sovereign wealth fund that would back him. that was essentially a vote of confidence. pretty much the shares ended flat. that investors are slightly skeptical of this whole situation. you can see it is down $8.77 at the moment. then we got to focus on the fact that elon musk also tweeted out that goldman sachs as well as silver lake were going to be the financial advisors. silver lake as recall did help dell. that was the computer company or is a computer company go private but there's a report from reuters right now that neither company officially said they will work as a

tesla actually survived without elon musk on the factory board. osques will endless work ethic the defendant? >> if you go back in elon's history and tesla's history. 2008 was a crisis. the future of the company was uncertain. under arguably as much pressure as he was now. he would give his employees a hard time. think, he was not as famous back then. there was not as much attention on all this. this time around you have elon on twitter. this is the first time the public has seen all sides of him. you have tesla being this huge success and now there is a lot more pressure on him. it is kind of this public crucible that is very strange to witness. emily: there is also the level of untruthfulness that he seems to be walking right into, not only tweeting something that could have been untruthful that funding was secured when it appears it was not, saying he dashed in and out of his brother's wedding, when his tweet say he did not do just that. how concerning is that? ashlee: he has always been a fundamentally truthful guy but there are moments when he

founder and chief executive elon musk says it's something he's now considering. the company has had a turbulent ride in its eight years as a public company traded on new york's nasdaq stock exchange. mr musk says the deal would pay $420 a share and take the company back into private hands. he says he already has the financial backing. tesla shares closed nearly 11% up, valuing the company around $82 billion, and mr musk‘s offer represents a 10% premium on that. but why would he want to? well, just last week tesla posted a record loss of $717 million for the three months to the end ofjune. taking the company private would mean tesla can avoid the prying eyes and demands of investors. mr musk says that will help the firm focus on long—term goals, and that might help it ride out the turbulence over deliveries. one of its biggest problems has been getting enough of its model 3 vehicles made each week. there's still a long waiting list, and it's key to tesla's profitability. oliver smith is a senior reporter with forbes. so, oliver, interesting statement from elon musk

interesting stuff. >>> elon musk says he is considering taking tesla private. critic. last time he was on with us on this program he called musk a jerk. what will he say about him today? ♪ at&t provides edge-to-edge intelligence, covering virtually every part of your healthcare business. so that if she has a heart problem & the staff needs to know, they will & they'll drop everything can you take a look at her vitals? & share the data with other specialists yeah, i'm looking at them now. & they'll drop everything hey. & take care of this baby yeah, that procedure seems right. & that one too. at&t provides edge to edge intelligence. it can do so much for your business, the list goes on and on. that's the power of &. & when your patient's tests come back... ♪ ashley: in the last hour "washington times" columnist charles hurt said the special election results last night in ohio were tight, yes, but it actually may be good news for republicans in november. take a listen. >> let's put it into perspective. the truth is that this is a special election. special election

i have a question, though, is elon musk involved in the day to day decisions with spacex?ask because of all the headlines. >> he's been spending most of not all of his time at tesla and sleeping on the factory floor, et cetera. >> and tweeting. >> yes, and when i sat down with one shot woman back in may she said he devised his time in may. i mean, elon musk is sort of pioneering the way right now in terms of what's going on in space and the economics around space and reusability. all three, they have different business models and are sort of doing different things right now. but musk is the one who's getting -- well, musk is the one that's getting rockets and spacecraft and if all goes to plan next year, people into space. so you could say he's winning right now. >> thank you very much >>> time now for a cnbc news update with sue herrera. >> here's what's happening at this hour, everyone. masked youth were caught on video in sweden torching cars and throwing rocks at police no injuries were reported but police say roughly 80 cars were set on fire. no reason obviously given

there was some kind of concrete conversation between and elon musk.n july 31, we don't know if they talked about price. a blog post said there was due diligence needed and we don't know if they came to any agreement. elon musk has been talking about how he will pull up the largest leveraged buyout in -- of all-time. he clarified, saying there is "no question a deal with the saudi sovereign fund could be close. ." then we learned tesla has formed a special committee to evaluate taking tesla private. explain to us the role of the committee. >> it is routine care. when -- here. whenever there is a buyout of the board has to make sure they are representing the shareholders and not just management. they will make sure this is really a good offer and a good structure for shareholders. there, we have to figure out how elon will fund this thing, what shareholders will turn their public shareholdings in for a private stake in this company, and see if there is enough of them so elon doesn't have to raise $70 billion to get this done. page withurns another the s