INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Tesla Inc's board named a special committee of three directors on Tuesday which will evaluate Elon Musk's proposals to take the company
private, although it said it was yet to see a firm offer from the company's chief executive.
Musk said on Monday he was in talks with a
Saudi sovereign fund for taking the electric car maker private
He later tweeted he was working with buyout firm Silver Lake and investment bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc as financial advisers on his
plan.
The special committee is composed of independent directors Brad Buss, Robyn Denholm and Linda Johnson Rice.
Buss served as chief
financial officer of solar panel installer SolarCity for two years before retiring in 2016
Tesla bought SolarCity that year.
Denholm, the first woman to join Tesla's board, is chief operations officer of telecom firm Telstra and
the ex-CFO of network gear maker Juniper Networks.
Rice, the first African-American and second woman to join the company's board, is the
chairman of Johnson Publishing Co, home to Ebony and Jet magazines.
The special committee has the authority to take any action on behalf of
the board to evaluate and negotiate a potential transaction and alternatives to any transaction proposed by Musk, the company said in the
statement.
Latham and Watkins LLP has been retained by the committee as its legal counsel
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati will be legal counsel for Tesla itself.
Shares in Tesla, which are still well below highs hit when Musk
initially raised the prospect of the transaction last week, inched up 0.7 percent in trading before the bell
