Musk says Saudi fund pushed for two years to take Tesla private

Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund has been pushing to take electric carmaker Tesla private in talks with Chief Executive Elon Musk dating back nearly two years and also backed the deal last week, Musk said in a blog post on Monday.

Musk last week shocked investors with his announcement on Twitter that he was looking to take Tesla private at $420 a share, valuing the company at $72 billion. He provided no details on funding except that it was “secured”.

“Going back almost two years, the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund has approached me multiple times about taking Tesla private,” Musk wrote in a blog post on Monday.

 “They first met with me at the beginning of 2017 to express this interest because of the important need to diversify away from oil.

They then held several additional meetings with me over the next year to reiterate this interest and to try to move forward with a going private transaction.