Tesla's No. 3 shareholder stands by Musk
Electric automaker Tesla’s third-largest shareholder stands ready to fork over more cash to the company if need be.
Despite recent controversies surrounding CEO Elon Musk, in an interview with The London Times on Monday, Scottish fund manager Baillie Gifford – which owns about an 8 percent stake in the company – said it stands by its investment.
“If [Musk] needs more capital we would be willing to back him,” Nick Thomas, partner at Baillie Gifford, said.
Elon Musk is Tesla’s largest shareholder, owning about one-fifth of shares. While Musk has repeatedly denied reports the automaker needs to raise cash, during the company’s third-quarter earnings call last week he left open the possibility that his viewpoint on the matter could change in the future.
The comments come despite a number of recent controversies, including a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission after Musk was accused of misleading investors for a tweet claiming he had secured a funding deal to take the company private. Both Tesla and Musk faced $20 million in civil penalties. In a separate post fired off over the weekend, the mercurial entrepreneur appeared to claim that the fine was “worth it.
Last week Tesla reported that it turned a profit for the first time during its most recent quarter – fulfilling a promise Musk made to investors to do so before the end of the year.
Tesla said it produced a weekly average of 4,300 of its flagship Model 3 sedans in the third quarter. Model 3 production has been a challenge for the automaker, which has made a concerted effort to ramp up capacity.
Tesla is reportedly facing a criminal probe over the truthfulness of those production figures, however, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.
The FBI is said to be investigating whether Tesla misstated Model 3 production figures going back to 2017.
Shares are more than 8 percent higher so far this year and nearly 30 percent higher over the past five days.