Elon Musk mystique is a phrase that aptly explains the lofty valuation that investors have given his innovative electric car company, Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA), transcending traditional financial metrics and including the CEO’s surprise Aug. 7 Twitter announcement about potentially taking the company private. 

The automobile manufacturer’s share price soared 10.99 percent on Aug. 7, when billionaire Musk tweeted that he is considering privatizing Silicon Valley-based Tesla at $420 a share, offering a premium of 19.89 percent above the company’s closing price on Aug. 6. That jump followed the company’s 16 percent climb to $349.54 on Aug. 2, after the announcement of better-than-expected second-quarter financial results late the day before. 

NASDAQ halted trading in Tesla’s shares from 2:30-3:45 p.m. EDT on Aug. 7 after Musk tweeted that the funding for a privatization already has been “secured” but he added that such a leveraged buyout (LBO) would require yet-to-be-obtained shareholder approval. Based on the proposed $420 per share price, Tesla would be valued at roughly $70 billion and become the biggest LBO in history. The deal’s size would more than double the previous largest LBO of $33 billion for hospital operator HCA Inc., in a combined equity and debt deal privatization on November 16, 2006.

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Paul Dykewicz, www.pauldykewicz.com, is an accomplished, award-winning journalist who has written for Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, USA Today, the Journal of Commerce,Seeking Alpha, GuruFocus and other publications and websites. Paul is the editor of StockInvestor.com and DividendInvestor.com, a writer for both websites and a columnist. He further is the editorial director of Eagle Financial Publications in Washington, D.C., where he edits monthly investment newsletters, time-sensitive trading alerts, free e-letters and other investment reports. Paul previously served as business editor of Baltimore’s Daily Record newspaper. Paul also is the author of an inspirational book, “Holy Smokes! Golden Guidance from Notre Dame’s Championship Chaplain,” with a foreword by former national championship-winning football coach Lou Holtz.