Entrepreneur and electric carmaker Elon Musk cannot be stopped when it comes to his plans of making renewable energy more affordable and widely available. With that, he announced that his company, Tesla Motor is a step closer to buying solar panel installer SolarCity in a $2.6 billion deal.
This will enable Musk to create a one-stop shop for clean energy. Earlier this month, Musk revealed his Tesla Master Plan Part 2 that includes intensifying his drive in proliferating the use renewable energy including the development of solar panel roofs. In the master plan, Musk revealed his future plans for Tesla while emphasizing on solar power.
"By definition, we must at some point achieve a sustainable energy economy or we will run out of fossil fuels to burn and civilization will collapse. Given that we must get off fossil fuels anyway and that virtually all scientists agree that dramatically increasing atmospheric and oceanic carbon levels is insane, the faster we achieve sustainability, the better," said Musk in a statement.
With Tesla and SolarCity, development of consumer solar panels, home battery storage systems and electric cars can be developed and marketed under one brand, according to CNBC. The merger will strengthen and further give an advantage to the booming electric car industry despite issues of autopilot safety.
But the merger is no surprise since Elon Musk is also the Chairman and a shareholder for SolarCity. These are just some of the names under his belt. Musk also has a commercial space flight service company called SpaceX.
Telsa had been working on acquiring SolarCity in the previous months but reports say it had to undergo committee reviews. According to MarketWatch the deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter, it is subject to SEC review and approval from the independent shareholders of both Tesla and SolarCity.