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- Elon Musk has denied a report suggesting Tesla has plans to set up a factory in Saudi Arabia.
- The Wall Street Journal reported that talks were "very early stage," but Musk said that was false.
- It marks the latest twist in a long and complex history between Musk and Saudi Arabia.
Elon Musk has denied a report that said Tesla planned to set up a manufacturing plant in Saudi Arabia, describing the claims as "utterly false."
The Tesla CEO made the statement in an X, formerly Twitter, post on Monday in response to a Wall Street Journal report that said the electric-vehicle manufacturer was in "very early stage" talks with the country.
The Journal, which cited people familiar with discussions, reported that Saudi Arabia was attempting to win over Tesla with plans to secure supplies of critical metals such as cobalt from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Tesla needs cobalt for its batteries.
The outlet said talks "could fall apart," with a deal between Saudi Arabia and Tesla threatened by the tense and checkered history between Musk and the nation's rulers, as well as their ownership of the Tesla rival Lucid.
The Journal updated its story after publication to include Musk's denial.
Tesla and representatives for the Saudi government did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.
Though Saudi Arabia is in the middle of a massive economic and clean-energy transition as it seeks to reduce its dependence on oil, a deal with Tesla would mark an unexpected turn of events given Musk's relationship with the kingdom.
Here's a timeline of the billionaire CEO's complicated history with the country.
How it all started
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In recent years, the kingdom has become increasingly vocal about reducing its dependence on oil and shifting to cleaner energy alternatives, with electric-vehicle development becoming a top priority.
It's here that Musk enters the fray. In a blog post in August 2018, Musk said he first met with Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, the powerful Public Investment Fund, at the beginning of 2017 after he said it expressed interest in taking Tesla private.
"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," the post said. "Obviously, the Saudi sovereign fund has more than enough capital needed to execute on such a transaction."
'Funding secured'
This all forms a backdrop to a now infamous tweet from Musk in August 2018: "Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured."
The declaration proved controversial as Tesla investors threw their hands up over the prospect of the company going private.
The outcry led to Musk publishing the blog post to explain his "funding secured" tweet. It's here that he said he had been approached "multiple times" by the sovereign wealth fund.
Musk said the fund met with him on July 31, 2018, days before the "funding secured" tweet and not long after it bought roughly 5% of Tesla stock.
"During the meeting, the managing director of the fund expressed regret that I had not moved forward previously on a going private transaction with them, and he strongly expressed his support for funding a going private transaction for Tesla at this time," Musk wrote.
He added that he left the meeting with "no question that a deal with the Saudi sovereign fund could be closed, and that it was just a matter of getting the process moving."
Far from secured
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It turned out that funding wasn't as "secured" as Musk said he thought. After a sit-down interview with Musk following the tweet, The New York Times reported that the Saudis had not committed to providing cash for the deal.
Court documents published last year showed private texts between Musk and Yasir al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Public Investment Fund, in which the Tesla chief said he was "deeply offended" by the suggestion from the Saudis that they were not interested in the deal.
He said he was being thrown "under the bus" by the Saudis, with al-Rumayyan responding that the fund hadn't received the financial information it had asked for and couldn't do anything until it had "sufficient information."
Snubbing Tesla for a rival
Lucid Motors
In January 2019, just months after the "funding secured" saga, the sovereign wealth fund enlisted the help of JPMorgan Chase to hedge its nearly 5% stake in Tesla, the Financial Times reported.
The move from the sovereign wealth fund meant that while Saudi Arabia still maintained its shares of the EV maker, it would be protected from price fluctuations.
But snubbing Tesla wasn't the only thing on the mind of the fund. The decision to hedge the Tesla shares came months after the fund invested $1 billion in Tesla's rival EV firm Lucid Motors. By 2020, the Saudis had majority ownership of the company.
Blocking the Twitter deal
Tesla isn't the only Musk-involved company that has caused controversy with the Saudis.
Last year, before Musk finalized his $44 billion take-private deal for Twitter, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal tweeted his objection to Musk's proposal of buying Twitter at $54.20 a share, suggesting the offer didn't come close to "the intrinsic value of Twitter."
His conglomerate, the Kingdom Holding Co., took a 3% stake in Twitter in 2011 worth about $300 million before it was floated onto the stock market.
"Being one of the largest & long-term shareholders of Twitter, @Kingdom_KHC & I reject this offer," the prince tweeted.
In response, Musk asked: "How much of Twitter does the Kingdom own, directly & indirectly? What are the Kingdom's views on journalistic freedom of speech?"
You're on your own, Musk
Reuters
In January, Musk testified in a trial amid accusations that he had defrauded investors with his "funding secured" tweet in 2018.
To defend his case, Musk had been banking on al-Rumayyan turning up for the trial in San Francisco, but lawyers for al-Rumayyan and the fund suggested they had no legal obligation to support the Tesla CEO's case, Bloomberg reported.
In other words, Musk was left to fend for himself.