A long list of investors publicly denied any talks with Tesla. All potential banks expressed puzzlement with the tweet as well. One of them would absolutely have to be involved for a deal of this size and none were.

Reporters asked everyone and found 0 evidence.

Did they ask the Saudi crown?

Yes they did.

PIF, the sovereign fund, stated that they had no intention to go beyond their initial 5% investment.

Last week they invested $1b in a Tesla rival, Lucid.

Thanks

He's said a lot of anti-short-seller things on twitter. Even if he genuinely wanted to take the company private, it's hard to see the "funding secured" statement as anything other than a lie.