Big Sacramento employer SolarCity to merge with Tesla | The Sacramento Bee

SolarCity Corp., the solar-energy company that’s become a major Sacramento area employer, agreed to a $2.6 billion merger Monday with electric-vehicle maker Tesla Motors Inc.

The deal represents a marriage between two companies overseen by Elon Musk. While he’s best known as chief executive of Tesla, he’s also chairman of SolarCity.

Based in San Mateo, SolarCity employs roughly 1,000 workers in the Sacramento region, including several hundred at a customer service center in Roseville.

Under the all-stock deal, SolarCity shareholders will receive 0.11 share of Tesla for each share of SolarCity. If approved by shareholders, the deal would create a major provider of energy and energy storage. The combined entity will “create fully integrated residential, commercial and grid-scale products that improve the way that energy is generated, stored and consumed,” Tesla said in its announcement.

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In a conference call with analysts, Musk said he and other key board members recused themselves from financial details of the transaction. Musk owns more than 20 percent of both companies. He first proposed the merger in June.