Tesla is officially in the solar energy business after their acquisition of SolarCity officially closed Monday morning, bringing together Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company with the solar energy company founded by his cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive. The deal was approved by Tesla and SolarCity shareholders last week, after first being proposed earlier this year.
The deal was worth roughly $2 billion. Tesla absorbed SolarCity’s roughly $3 billion in debt as part of the deal. Tesla CEO Elon Musk re-cused himself from the vote because he owns about 20% of both companies and is chairman of SolarCity. Musk is also the cousin of SolarCity’s CEO Lyndon Rive.
Musk has been showing off his desire to make house and building roofs out of solar cells, so design and function become one. It’s the first step Musk and Tesla are taking to provide customers with their own ways to create renewable energy and eventually cut down on heating and cooling costs.
Production on the new cells were thought to originally start as early as mid-2017, and with the acquisition of SolarCity, that looks like a reasonable timeline.
