Hmm the halt code appears to be T1, which is for pending news:

https://www.nasdaqtrader.com/trader.aspx?id=TradeHalts#

Okay I know nothing about trading halts but reading this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trading_halt it seems that Tesla is supposed to tell the exchange to halt trading 10 minutes prior to releasing news. Did Tesla initiate the trading halt here (late) or did the exchange?

I am not familiar with this area but based on the glossary here https://www.nasdaqtrader.com/Trader.aspx?id=tradehaltcodes , it seems if the halt was done by the exchange it would have a T12 halt code. SteveGregory's comment cites Tesla trading was halted using a T1 halt code (defined as "Trading is halted pending the release of material news"), which I assume would be initiated by Tesla.

To further muddy the waters, Fox News business on the latest updates casually mentions that the regulators have halted it, not sure if it's true.

"the regulators halted trading after a request by Tesla" could be true and not mean what you seem to think their statement means.

Interested in seeing where the funding is coming from at that valuation. Potentially the biggest buyout of all time?

Other buyouts of such scale involved companies with huge cash flows/profits - think RJR Nabisco, Hilton, TXU (big US utility).

Tesla of course is a very different animal. Hard to imagine any kind of conventional financing working for this type of deal.

Beyond the Saudis maybe some other SWF or deep pocketed individual investors?

Chinese? Given their interest in electric cars, Gigafactory (https://electrek.co/2018/08/07/tesla-hiring-gigafactory-3-ch...) and solar and of course the amount of USD they have.

Why does is have to be beyond Saudis? it also could Qatar, China,UAE etc.

Apple?

Or Softbank. The Bank of Japan is printing money like crazy to keep the Yen from deflating. Softbank seems to intent on getting out of Yen and into assets while the Yen still has the value it does right now.