Japanese enterprise leaders are reportedly urging Tesla CEO Elon Musk to step in as a strategic investor in Nissan after the corporate’s merger talks with rival Honda collapsed final week.
Hiro Mizuno, a former Tesla board member, and ex-Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga are spearheading the hassle for Tesla to amass Nissan’s vegetation within the US, the Monetary Occasions reported.
The Tesla boss, nevertheless, shot down the prospect of shopping for up Nissan’s US-based vegetation.
“The Tesla factory IS the product,” Musk wrote on X in response to the Monetary Occasions report detailing a potential funding.
“The Cybercab production line is like nothing else in the automotive industry,” Musk added, referencing Tesla’s upcoming steering wheel-less robotaxi.
Nonetheless, Nissan inventory rose practically 5% Friday.
With mounting stress to extend home manufacturing in response to President Donald Trump’s tariff threats, the high-level Japanese group is hoping Tesla may see a possibility to broaden its footprint whereas concurrently strengthening Nissan’s monetary place.
Nissan operates meeting vegetation in Tennessee and Mississippi, which have a mixed annual capability of roughly a million automobiles.
Nevertheless, manufacturing at these services fell to simply 525,000 items in 2024. As a part of a broader restructuring plan, Nissan lately introduced job cuts and a 20% discount in world manufacturing capability.
To make issues worse,Moody’s downgraded Nissan’s credit standing to junk standing on Friday.
In 2006, Nissan’s inventory worth reached a peak of greater than $27 a share. As of Friday, the inventory was buying and selling at just below $6 a share — a 77% decline.
The push to convey Tesla into Nissan follows the breakdown of Honda’s $58 billion merger proposal, a deal that had been set in movement after Taiwanese electronics producer Foxconn expressed curiosity in buying a stake in Nissan by Renault, the Japanese automaker’s long-standing companion.
With merger talks now off the desk, hypothesis has grown over Nissan’s vulnerability to overseas acquisition, significantly by Foxconn, activist traders, or non-public fairness corporations trying to capitalize on the corporate’s struggles.
Honda has indicated that it could be keen to renew the merger talks with Nissan given that the corporate ditch its chief government officer, Makoto Uchida, the FT reported earlier this week.
On Friday, a Nikkei newspaper reported stated Taiwan’s Foxconn has proposed forming a partnership with Honda with an final intention of making a four-way framework that might additionally embrace Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors.
