Elon Musk, a pioneer in commercial space exploration and electric cars, is now tinkering with one of Wall Street's most storied products: the management led buyout.

Musk, in tweeting Tuesday that he may take Tesla Inc. private, said he hoped “all” investors would remain shareholders after the buyout rather than follow the conventional approach of cashing out. He looked no further than his rocket company—Space Exploration Technologies Corp.—for a way to keep Tesla shareholders onboard.

For years SpaceX has run an internal stock market for employees and other shareholders, allowing it to remain closely held. They can privately sell shares to sophisticated investors such as Fidelity Investments through liquidity events, according to a letter from Musk to employees. Tesla could use a similar structure to go private without requiring stockholders to cash out, said Sohail Prasad, founder of San Francisco-based Equidate, which helps closely held tech firms hold similar share sales.