$90 Million In SolarCity Bonds Purchased By Elon Musk’s SpaceX

Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has just invested in Elon Musk’s SolarCity’s solar bonds to the tune of $90 million dollars, according to reports out this week. SolarCity launched its solar bonds program in 2014. They allow members of the public to invest in SolarCity without buying stock. SolarCity recently took their bonds to a new level by partnering with an investment company to make them available for retirement investing.

solarcity

Writing on the SolarCity blog, Tim Newell explained:

We are excited to announce that SpaceX has invested $90 million in solar bonds. Solar bonds are issued – and backed – by SolarCity and powered by monthly solar payments from thousands of solar customers across the country. SpaceX is effectively getting paid by the sun.

SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen bought the bonds online, directly from SolarCity. After reviewing the investment materials, it took less than 10 minutes to set up an account and order the bonds.

Newell is VP of Financial Products at SolarCity.

It’s a little mind boggling that $90 million was invested online in less than ten minutes.

One thing that ties SolarCity with SpaceX, as noted at the top, is Elon Musk. Musk founded the space exploration company in 2002 and is its CEO and Chief Designer. He is a cousin of SolarCity’s co-founder and CEO Lyndon Rive, and is also one of the largest SolarCity investors and its Chairman. SpaceX became a large SolarCity investor too, and very rapidly. Of course, Musk is also the CEO of Tesla, and Tesla apparently will get deeper into the energy storage business by making its own home batteries, which it’s presumed will be used by SolarCity, perhaps as part of its new microgrid service.

SpaceX invested in the solar bonds to get a good return and SolarCity receives more capital to use for expansion as a result. The solar power company has about 9,500 employees now, and hired 4,000 new ones last year.

SpaceX is profitable, so it might be able to continue to invest in SolarCity. It is at least conceivable that the interest SpaceX makes on the solar bonds could be reinvested in more of them.

Image Credit: SolarCity


Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.

Latest CleanTechnica TV Video


Advertisement
 
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.

Jake Richardson

Hello, I have been writing online for some time, and enjoy the outdoors. If you like, you can follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JakeRsol

Jake Richardson has 1021 posts and counting. See all posts by Jake Richardson