Elon Musk: Tesla Motors Inc (TSLA) May Repay Its Loan By Wednesday

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Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk, who has been known for making big announcements on Twitter, made another one on Monday.

Elon Musk: Tesla Motors Inc (TSLA) May Repay Its Loan By Wednesday

The billionaire tweeted that the electric car company may repay its U.S. Department of Energy loan by Wednesday, reports Reuters. The CEO also told that the company plans to move the announcement regarding the charging station network to next week.

Tesla Motors Inc (TSLA) CEO Shares

The Tweet from the CEO, who owns 27.5 percent of Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA), read “Given govt loan repayment this week (prob Wed), Supercharger update will be next week.”

Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) has availed the full loan funds as of Aug. 31, 2012, and as per the latest filings had already paid back at least $25 million to the Energy Department.

Equity & Debt Offering

The plan to repay the loan was confirmed by the company’s spokesman, and added that the company will make the full payment of the DOE loan. The electric car company revealed last week that it will use $452.4 million of the proceeds from a bond and stock offering to pre pay the loan from DOE.

Last week, the company increased the size of its equity and debt offerings by 30 percent to about $1.08 billion with an objective to up the cash position and mainly to pay the much criticized federal loan.

Details of the loan

The low interest loan was granted to Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) in June 2009 to finance the cost concerning the engineering and building of the flagship Model S. The loan was issued under the green-cars program created under President George W. Bush in 2007 and implemented by President Barack Obama in 2009.

If the company pays off the loan this week, which will be nine years ahead of the deadline of December 2022, it will distinguish itself from other car makers like Fisker Automotive Inc that failed to profit from rechargeable autos, and other car makers that are in no hurry to pay back the loan from the Energy Department.

The similar funds granted to A123 Systems Inc and solar-panel maker Solyndra LLC, which failed in their attempt, have been widely criticized from Republicans for loans taken by Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) ( $5.9 billion) and Nissan Motor Co.’s ($1.4 billion). The standard payment schedule is for 10 years.

Shares of the electric car company closed at $89.94 down 1.7 percent yesterday at New York. This year till Monday, shares are up 166 percent compared to 17 percent gain for Russell 1000 Index.

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