Columnist and author Paul Dykewicz meets with SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell

Tesla privatization plans and rationale, revealed by CEO Elon Musk on Aug. 13, confirmed that Saudi Arabia’s sovereign investment fund would be a key potential investor to provide the estimated tens of billions of dollars likely needed for the public company to change form.

Musk also acknowledged that his Aug. 7 tweet that funding had been “secured” did not mean that financing had been finalized to privatize the electric car company, Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA), but rather that the managing director of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign investment fund sought to help finance the move for a heightened equity stake. The CEO blogged on Aug. 13 that he informed the auto company’s board of directors of a positive July 31 meeting between the head of the Saudi Arabian sovereign fund and him to explore a Tesla privatization that could be in the company’s “long-term interest.”

The board of directors agreed at its Aug. 2 meeting that Musk could reach out to the company’s largest shareholders to learn whether they had the “ability and desire” to remain investors if the company went private. When tweeting about the Tesla privatization possibility from his personal twitter account, Musk indicated he was speaking for himself as a “potential bidder” and wanted to share the news with all investors publicly.

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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.