Tesla motors remains the subject of a tug-of-war between backers and doubters, but the electric-car maker caught those selling short by surprise with a small equity raise. That the company needed a liquidity bump was no small secret, though the small sizing at US$650m seemed intentionally designed to catch a growing list of detractors off-guard. Tesla launched the all-primary offering as 2.1m shares, of which Elon Musk committed to purchase 83,974 (US$20m). Even without the endorsement by Tesla's chief executive, chairman, and product architect, the funding target is bite-sized at just 1.6% of the outstanding and less than one day's average trading volume of 3.9m shares.
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