From his Wikipedia page:<p>> In September 2020, two days after Nikola established ties with General Motors, short seller Hindenburg Research released a report accusing Milton of making false statements and characterizing Nikola Motor Company as "an intricate fraud" over many years.[4] Nikola stock fell by 8 percent that day, and fell an additional 15 percent the following day after Milton failed to deliver his rebuttal as he previously promised on Twitter.[8][9][10] Further verification by Bloomberg and Financial Times confirmed some of the details presented in the report.[11][12] As of September 12, 2020, Nikola Motor Company was being investigated with regard to a shareholder lawsuit by at least one law firm for possible fraud as detailed in the report from short seller Hindenberg (most of which referred to statements and actions by Milton). [13] <i>On September 14, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, and the Wall Street Journal all reported that the US Department of Justice joined the SEC in the investigation related to potential securities fraud</i>.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Milton" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Milton</a>
Damn, that was their only paying customer [1].<p>[1] <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nikola-earnings-only-revenue-solar-panels-founder-chairman-trevor-milton-2020-8" rel="nofollow">https://www.businessinsider.com/nikola-earnings-only-revenue...</a>
""The company has yet to mass produce a product and all of it’s revenue to date came from selling solar panel installation services to Milton.""<p>Oof. And he still owns 20% of a company created via SPAC.<p>How does any of this work? How has this passed any diligence?
> Sources close to the embattled fuel cell truck manufacturer are reporting that founder Trevor Milton has resigned as Executive Chairman of Nikola Motors (NASDAQ: NKLA) and has departed the company effective immediately<p>Wow. I wonder if he "resigned" or jumped ship. Either way, it doesn't look good.<p>Theranos 2.0?
The whole thing is such a transparent scam, you could almost use it as a litmus test to distinguish the fools from those who actually have a functioning brain.
I found the subreddit [1] a really interesting (and confusing) read on the company. I went through it after the Hindenburg report, and as an outsider I'm just really baffled on people's absolute devotion to the company (and Milton). Even so far as to say the SEC investigation was a good thing because they asked for it themselves and it will clear them of all wrong-doing.<p>All of this reminds me that I think too logically as an engineer. There are a lot of people out there who don't think the same way and there's a lot to learn in understanding how they view things.<p>[1] - <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/NikolaCorporation" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/NikolaCorporation</a>
1st-person video of Milton jogging next to one of the vehicles:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LSrvRMgIqw" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LSrvRMgIqw</a>
Additional details from the NYT:
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/21/business/nikola-trevor-milton-resigns.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/21/business/nikola-trevor-mi...</a><p>Mr. Milton said in a statement that “the focus should be on the company and its world-changing mission, not me. So I made the difficult decision to approach the board and volunteer to step aside.”
Surprising nobody.<p>As somebody following EV, I always considered them a joke company. But then the IPO and all of a suddend were mentioned as a major competitor just on the heels of Tesla. It was insane.<p>Literally listening to Trever Milton for 5min makes it clear that he was a major bullshit artist. I don't know how people didn't see that. Pretty much nothing he said made sense or was consistant.
I'm shocked to see no mention of the tweets by David Bateman that seem to have set this off <a href="https://twitter.com/davidbateman/status/1307212066017521667?s=19" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/davidbateman/status/1307212066017521667?...</a>
The Financial Times has had daily coverage of this in a great series of articles. Unfortunately paywalled.<p><a href="https://www.ft.com/search?q=nikola" rel="nofollow">https://www.ft.com/search?q=nikola</a>
Heard his podcast few weeks back, he was very confident about technology and business model. It is surprising to see him resign, Jump ship or pushed out by board members.<p>Their business model would make money even if they started the fleet with gas powered trucks, doing it with self manufacturered hydrogen powered vehicle is the major doubt at this point perhaps.