Wesley Clark: The Penny-Stock General

Sixteen years ago, Wesley Clark was the four-star U.S. Army general running the Kosovo war. These days, he’s been pitching food-truck franchises to military veterans and helping a convicted felon raise money to grow hydroponic lettuce. “We’d love it if you joined with us in an investment,” the silver-haired Clark, 70, says in a promotional video for a company called the Grilled Cheese Truck. He’s pictured standing in front of a statue of a bald eagle in a replica of the Oval Office. “We’re going to be one of the fastest-growing young companies in America.”

The grilled cheese venture is losing money and hasn’t signed any veterans as franchisees, and the lettuce operation is being sued for failing to pay its bills. They’re just two of a dozen precarious ventures with which Clark has been associated since he retired from the Army with the self-proclaimed goal—a joke, he says now—of making $40 million.