News
Tesla (TSLA) stock falls on report of alleged Department of Justice criminal probe
Shares of Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) fell by more than 5% in midday trading Tuesday following a report that the Silicon Valley electric carmaker is under investigation by the US Justice Department over statements made by company CEO Elon Musk last month pertaining to the company’s possible privatization and the fact that funding had been “secured.”
News of the Justice Department’s investigation was related to Bloomberg News by two individuals familiar with the matter. The criminal investigation will reportedly run alongside a previously reported civil inquiry by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The criminal investigation is reportedly in its early stages.
Federal prosecutors reportedly opened the fraud investigation due to Elon Musk’s now-infamous “funding secured” tweet last August 9, which resulted in TSLA stock soaring 11% to $387.46, according to the publication’s sources. Inasmuch as the announcement pushed the company’s stock near its all-time highs on the day of Musk’s tweet, TSLA stock began a long trek down as questions emerged about the source of funding the CEO was referring to in his tweet.
Few details are currently known about the ongoing investigation. That being said, Justice Department probes like the civil inquiries being undertaken by the SEC, are known to take months to complete, with investigations at times ending with prosecutors deciding to take no enforcement action.
A few days after announcing that he is thinking of taking Tesla private, Elon Musk published a blog post stating that the “funding secured” tweet came from talks he has had with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, which took a 5% stake in Tesla earlier this year. The weeks following these announcements were incredibly volatile, as SEC investigations were reportedly begun, lawsuits were filed, and TSLA shares took a dive.
Tesla, for its part, began the process for its possible privatization. Musk hired several high-profile advisers including bankers from Goldman Sachs, as well as attorneys from Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. He also hired Silver Lake Partners’ Egon Durban, who brokered and helped bankroll the buyout of Dell when it went private. By August 22, Tesla’s advisers had a list of possible investors that would provide funding for the company’s privatization at $420 per share.
Among the investors that were willing to fund Elon Musk’s go-private initiative were German auto giant Volkswagen AG, as well as Silver Lake Partners itself. Together, the investors reportedly agreed to contribute as much as $30 billion for the deal. At this point, though, Elon Musk already had reservations, particularly since it would be incredibly difficult to bring over TSLA’s retail investors into a privatized Tesla.
Ultimately, Elon Musk opted to walk out of a possible $30 billion deal. An announcement about the company staying public was posted on Tesla’s official blog soon after. Since then, Tesla has focused itself on its original Q3 2018 targets — that is, the continued production ramp of the Model 3 and the company’s aim to become profitable. The company appears poised towards a record quarter, particularly after Elon Musk noted in a letter to employees that Tesla is “about to have the most amazing quarter in (its) history, building and delivering more than twice as many cars as (it) did last quarter.”
Following is Tesla’s official response to the reported DOJ investigation.
“Last month, following Elon’s announcement that he was considering taking the company private, Tesla received a voluntary request for documents from the DOJ and has been cooperative in responding to it. We have not received a subpoena, a request for testimony, or any other formal process. We respect the DOJ’s desire to get information about this and believe that the matter should be quickly resolved as they review the information they have received.”
As of writing, Tesla stock is trading down 2.22% at $288.27 per share.
This story is currently developing.
For years, there have been images and videos across social media platforms that have reminded me of when I was a 15-year-old kid teased by “Xbox 720” videos on YouTube. These videos are of the supposed “Tesla Phone” that Elon Musk was secretly developing in between leading Tesla with its electric cars and SpaceX with its reusable rockets.
Would you buy a Tesla phone ? pic.twitter.com/aaTwvvIJit
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) October 6, 2023
Although Musk has put those rumors to bed several times, it was never completely out of the realm that he could get involved in cell phones in some capacity. Think outside the box and more macro-level, though. Instead of reinventing the computer, Musk reinvented connectivity by developing Starlink with SpaceX.
It could be something similar, TD Cowen analyst Gregory Williams said in a note last week, where he hinted SpaceX could be gathering some steam to acquire T-Mobile.
Williams said it would be the “clear choice” for SpaceX if it decided to go through with a network acquisition. He also suggested AT&T.
The move would be possible through selling more of its own stock, which would help SpaceX raise the money to purchase T-Mobile, which would cost roughly $300 billion. It could be one of the moves SpaceX makes post-IPO in terms of an acquisition: it already acquired Cursor AI for $60 billion.
Other analysts, like Dan Ives of Wedbush, believe SpaceX and Tesla will eventually merge into one anyway, and that conglomeration could come as soon as this year, some have said.
The implications of SpaceX purchasing T-Mobile are massive. A combined entity would create a truly ubiquitous network: T-Mobile’s terrestrial 5G towers and Starlink’s growing constellation of Direct-to-Cell satellites. This would essentially eliminate dead zones across the U.S. and potentially globally.
SpaceX would instantly become a full-scale facilities-based carrier with satellite differentiation; a huge advantage. This would pressure AT&T and Verizon heavily.
There are also concerns like a potential reduction in long-term competition, and of course, a deal of that size would face intense scrutiny from government agencies.
The strategic fit is compelling due to the existing Starlink–T-Mobile partnership and complementary technologies (space + terrestrial). It could create a dominant integrated communications player. However, the regulatory, financial, and execution hurdles are enormous — this remains highly speculative with no indication SpaceX is actively pursuing it right now.
Tesla revealed a major new Cybercab detail in a guide it released for First Responders, showing new territory in its beliefs and intentions for the ride-hailing-focused vehicle that entered production in April.
The First Responders Guide is released to give fire departments, paramedics, and other emergency personnel the proper guidance on what to do in the event of an accident, entrapment, or other situation that would require immediate attention.
On one of the pages of the First Responders Guide, Tesla revealed a stark detail about the Cybercab, which could help personnel enter the vehicle more easily in case of an emergency.
Tesla Cybercab has one important piece that AI4 cars might need for FSD
It shows Tesla has no intention of releasing any Cybercab units that were initially proposed for ride-hailing services for the general public with any manual controls, meaning a steering wheel or pedals:
“A Cybercab equipped with steering wheel, brake pedal, and an acceleration pedal is typically an engineering or test vehicle, and operates at SAE Level 2 autonomy. Cybercab is not typically equipped with a steering wheel or acceleration and brake pedals.”
New official Cybercab documentation from Tesla:
“A Cybercab equipped with steering wheel, brake pedal, and an acceleration pedal is typically an engineering or test vehicle, and operates at SAE Level 2 autonomy. Cybercab is not typically equipped with a steering wheel or… https://t.co/P6ut1mZyzr pic.twitter.com/yq6skl9s2J
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) June 27, 2026
This is a major development for those who continue to believe Tesla planned to release the Cybercab with any sort of manual controls so that passengers could take over if needed. However, when Tesla started manufacturing production versions of the Cybercab in Giga Texas earlier this year, they were spotted without a steering wheel or pedals.
It essentially confirms the company has no intentions of bringing manual controls to the car’s production versions. Some have argued that the likelihood of Tesla having something
There still are some Cybercab units out there with a steering wheel and pedals, and as Tesla said, these cars are engineering or test vehicles, which have Safety Monitors on board to help the car out of a precarious situation or emergency.
Tesla released the Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ suite to owners of Hardware 3 or AI3 vehicles today, adding several new features to the vehicles that were once believed to be capable of unsupervised self-driving.
Now, Tesla has released this modified suite to older Tesla vehicles, adding plenty of new features and capabilities.
Here are the full release notes for the suite:
- Distilled the intelligence from HW4 V14 into HW3. This allows HW3 to directly learn how to handle scenarios using HW4 V14 as a guide. This process unlocks the improvements that have been made to HW4 including Reinforcement Learning (RL) and offline models for HW3.
- Improved both proactive and reactive responsiveness across a wide variety of categories including navigation handling, merges and forks, pedestrian interactions, traffic lights, and vehicle cut-in scenarios.
- Improved general comfort in nominal scenarios through fewer false slowdowns, smoother steering and more consistent lane centering.
- Introduced parking, unparking, and reversing capabilities.
- Added Arrival Options for you to select where FSD should park: in a Parking Lot, on the Street, in a Driveway, or at the Curbside.
- Speed Profiles are now available at all times, to further customize driving style preference.
These improvements, according to Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, help distill the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute configurations of AI3.
Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ for older cars finally gets released
He added:
“It includes destination options and speed profiles on city roads, but more importantly significantly improved safety. We hope you’ll enjoy it, once the build ships wide.”
FSD v14 Lite is now rolling out to AI3 early-access customers. Based on the feedback, will rollout to more customers over the next few weeks.
This build distills the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute config of AI3. It includes destination…
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) June 29, 2026
Tesla will continue to roll out the v14 Lite suite more widely in the coming weeks, the company said.
Tesla Phone? Not quite, but close: analyst
Tesla reveals huge Cybercab detail in new guide for First Responders
