[yaakov34]

Musk is the biggest shareholder in SolarCity, and his cousins are the top managers (and also shareholders) there. The decision to merge SolarCity with the much more powerful Tesla ensures the future of SolarCity, at least in the medium term. SolarCity was losing money and thought to be in trouble.

That said, it's not like the conflict of interest is a secret. Musk is going to get the deal approved by Tesla shareholders. Personally, I would be more skeptical in their place, but apparently they are fairly enthusiastic about it. So whatever, more power to him and to them.

[AJ007]

He made a pretty good case on the first conference call that buying SolarCity out right is the best way to prevent future conflicts of interest. Partnerships between the two companies as independent entities would mean continuous scrutiny over which party would be receiving a favorable conflict of interest.

Is the Powerwall just was an optional accessory to upsell to Tesla automobile customers? If so, then the SolarCity deal is bad for both parties. I am inclined to believe not.

If the purpose of Tesla is to transition humans from fossil fuels to solar then it would appear that this makes sense from multiple points of view. Presumably Tesla can do a better job at doing this faster and quicker than SolarCity could on its own. This is a really, really big task and making some comparisons about how SolarCity may capture a greater amount of future profits by itself is underestimating the future competitive environment and likelihood of a positive outcome.

The thing for investors to look at critically going forward is how Tesla advances in manufacturing capability relative to the competition. The attempt at raw materials in, finished goods out, at a very high rate of speed, speaks strongly for how Tesla is trying to achieve their underlying mission.

Perhaps in 5 years many companies will be able to accomplish this. If so, further shareholder dilution is a big problem. Tesla could be wildly overvalued. Other car companies are producing good electric cars and they will be self-driving soon. Doing an ok job of those two things alone can't justify Tesla's value or survival. Uber's transportation network effects combined with the huge drop in auto sales from vehicle sharing will gut any plausible profits.

Value investors beware. Also a good exercise in why just doing traditional balance sheet & income statements combined with a linear evaluation of the business results in tech companies always looking way overvalued (Facebook being wildly overvalued since Mark Zuckerberg turned down the $1b offer from Yahoo.)

[kbenson]

I don't think it's "shady", I think possibly Musk has a different outlook that's much longer than what most people are considering. He's made no effort to hide that he thinks are the major technologies needed to solve some global problems. Even if he's propping Solar City up, his belief that solar is essential in the future can mean that be believes he's also acting in the best interest of everyone involved. Solar City has a large share of the US solar market, and letting that go to waste when there may be plenty of ways to capitalize on that in a few years would be wasteful.

[sreya]

Don't know if it's relevant but Tesla admitted that only 2 individuals on the board didn't also have ties to Solar City, so hearing that shareholders are enthusiastic about the merge wouldn't be surprising I wouldn't think