It’s a done deal. Elon Musk’s offer to acquire Solar City has been accepted. Moving forward, Tesla will be manufacturing solar panels (made in Buffalo).
According to Musk, solar technologies has always been part of the bigger picture for Tesla. The thought would be that by merging the companies, both entities would benefit from enhanced research and design, as well as scaled products and services. The Wall Street Journal has the full story, regarding the all-stock deal – SolarCity is valued at around $2.6 billion.
Musk stated in his blog (Master Plan, Part Deux) that the mission was to “Create a smoothly integrated and beautiful solar-roof-with-battery product that just works, empowering the individual as their own utility, and then scale that throughout the world. One ordering experience, one installation, one service contact, one phone app.
“We can’t do this well if Tesla and SolarCity are different companies, which is why we need to combine and break down the barriers inherent to being separate companies. That they are separate at all, despite similar origins and pursuit of the same overarching goal of sustainable energy, is largely an accident of history. Now that Tesla is ready to scale Powerwall and SolarCity is ready to provide highly differentiated solar, the time has come to bring them together.”