Elon Musk’s tweets may cost Tesla $920m in cash
Run-ins with regulators and executive exits have made it all but certain Tesla will have to settle a March 1 convertible bond maturity in cash
New York — Elon Musk’s run-in with regulators and executive exits have made it all but certain that his electric-car company will have to pay $920m to bondholders on Friday after Tesla’s stock failed to rise above a critical price level. Tesla is on the hook to settle the March 1 convertible bond maturity in cash, the largest debt payment to date in its almost 16-year history. To make some of the payout using stock, the shares would have had to reach a volume-weighted average price of $359.87 for the 20-day trading period that began January 29. The figure was about $306.91 as of Tuesday, the final day of that span. Holders must decide on Wednesday if they would rather convert to equity or receive cash, and it’s unlikely they’ll opt for stock. Based on the trading of Tesla’s shares in the past 20 days, if a holder decided to convert their investment to stock, they’d receive a conversion value of $850 between cash and shares, instead of the $1,000 par value at maturity that Tesla woul...
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