*By Carlo Versano*
A day after Tesla's embattled CEO Elon Musk unburdened himself in a phone call with The New York Times, investors in his only public company signaled they were less than forgiving, sending shares of the electric car maker down about 9 percent on Friday.
Musk [told The Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/business/elon-musk-interview-tesla.html) that the past year has been "excruciating" and the "most difficult and painful" of his career.
The interview laid bare an executive at the end of his rope, said Tim Higgins of the Wall Street Journal ー "a portrait of a man who's been under incredible pressure for almost a year now."
Around the same time that Musk's interview with the Times was published, Higgins and his colleagues [reported](https://www.wsj.com/articles/sec-pressing-tesla-directors-for-details-on-communications-with-elon-musk-1534450010) that the SEC was farther along in an investigation of Tesla than previously thought.
"The investigation is beyond just this tweet," Higgins said, referring to Musk's now infamous declaration that he secured funding to take Tesla private. Federal regulators were also looking into whether Musk misled investors about Model 3 production since last year, including sending a subpoena to at least one supplier.
That investigation into Model 3 production predates the questions about Musk's tweet last week that he would [take the company private at $420 a share](https://cheddar.com/videos/elon-musk-wants-to-take-tesla-private-at-420-a-share) ー a statement that the former SEC boss Laura Unger [told Cheddar](https://www.cheddar.com/videos/former-sec-chair-musk-is-trying-to-explain-what-he-wrote) was "clearly misleading."
Even as a private company, Musk would have challenges, Higgins said. Though Musk wouldn't have to engage in the "constant battle" with short-sellers that he's pointed to as a root of Tesla's problems, he would still have difficulty ramping up production of a mass-market electric car built essentially from scratch.
"At the end of the day you still need to have a profitable business and making cars is really hard," Higgins said.
For more on this story, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/tesla-tumbles-after-elon-musks-emotional-interview).
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
