Enlarge / The front half of the Nikola Badger. (credit: Aurich Lawson / Nikola Motor Corporation )

Nikola CEO Mark Russell downplayed the company's Badger pickup truck in comments to the Financial Times on Thursday.

“The Badger was an interesting and exciting project to some shareholders, but our institutional shareholders are mostly focused on the business plan,” Russell said. “Our core business plan since before we became publicly listed always focused on heavy trucks and hydrogen infrastructure.”

Russell's comments were published after markets closed on Thursday. Nikola's stock price plunged on Friday morning and is currently down about 14 percent for the day.

Enlarge / The Nikola Badger. (credit: Aurich Lawson / Nikola Motor Corporation )

When Nikola and GM announced a partnership on September 8, GM said it expected the deal to close by September 30. Now September 30 has arrived, and the deal hasn't closed. Media reports indicate that the deal is unlikely to close today.

A GM spokesman confirmed the delay in an email to Ars. "Our transaction with Nikola has not closed. We are continuing our discussions with Nikola and will provide further updates when appropriate."

Also this morning, Nikola published a revised overview of the company's business strategy. It discussed Nikola's plans to manufacture semitrucks in Europe and the United States, build a network of hydrogen fuel stations, and even plans for an electric all-terrain vehicle. But conspicuously missing from the document was any mention of the Badger pickup truck—the one that GM was supposed to manufacture for Nikola under the now-delayed partnership.

Enlarge / Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, in 2019. (credit: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

GM CEO Mary Barra on Monday signaled that the company is standing by its deal to produce Nikola's Badger pickup truck.

"The company has worked with a lot of different partners and we’re a very capable team that has done the appropriate diligence," Barra said during a conference with RBC Capital Markets on Monday.

GM is standing by Nikola despite recent revelations that the startup misled the public about the capabilities of its first truck, the Nikola One. At its 2016 unveiling, founder Trevor Milton claimed that the Nikola One "fully functions." But on Monday, Nikola admitted that the company never had a working prototype of the truck. The company acknowledged that a 2018 promotional video showed the truck rolling down a shallow hill —not driving under its own power.