Elon Musk thinks SolarCity will add $1bn in revenue to Tesla and prove naysayers wrong
Elon Musk is very keen to get unimpressed investors on side for Tesla's takeover of SolarCity.
His plan is to have a Tesla/SolarCity combination creating a seamless experience for customers looking to buy solar panels, home batteries and solar roofs, "Over time, I think most customers are going to opt for all three," he said in a conference call to analysts yesterday.
There have been a few raised eyebrows over the fact the chief executive of the firm is Musk's cousin and Musk himself is the biggest shareholder, with some shareholders saying the deal is a conflict to combine two of his companies.
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Musk though is adamant there's real business value in the proposition (as you'd hope). He said the $2.6bn (£2.1bn) SolarCity merger will add more than $1bn in revenue next year if the move is given the go-ahead by investors on 17 November.
He also predicted $150m of cost savings within the first year from sales and marketing efficiencies.
If he's going to win over investors, now's the time. Tesla has just unveiled its first quarterly profit in more than three years and then showed off some pretty nifty looking solar panels for the roof of the future.
Read more: Here's Elon Musk's latest project: A solar roof
"I'm pretty optimistic about where the vote's going," Musk said on the call, suggesting early indications were good. "Those that predict a bad outcome, how good have they been at predicting the outcome of Tesla in the past?" he pointed out, in typical bullish style.
He said there had been "quite a few naysayers" including big hedge funds, about Tesla's drive into the clean energy business. "If they have a battering average of zero, you should really question whether their future predictions are going to be better," he said.