This should not be surprising to anyone. Arstechnica has followed Nikola's terrible and obvious fraud(s) for years now:<p><a href="https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/02/nikola-admits-to-making-inaccurate-statements-under-disgraced-founder/" rel="nofollow">https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/02/nikola-admits-to-making...</a><p><a href="https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/12/nikola-stock-craters-after-cancellation-of-major-garbage-truck-order/" rel="nofollow">https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/12/nikola-stock-craters-af...</a><p><a href="https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/09/nikola-patented-a-stolen-truck-design-tesla-claims-in-legal-response/" rel="nofollow">https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/09/nikola-patented-a-stole...</a><p>And many more...<p>The speculation around this stock has been insane for many years now:<p><a href="https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/11/nikola-stock-soars-after-confused-investors-think-gm-deal-has-closed/" rel="nofollow">https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/11/nikola-stock-soars-afte...</a><p>Top quote: "The market can remain irrational longer than you can roll your eyes at it."
If you haven't seen the Hindenburg report, I recommend reading it for the comedic value: <a href="https://hindenburgresearch.com/nikola/" rel="nofollow">https://hindenburgresearch.com/nikola/</a><p>Notable laughs:<p>* Nikola rolled their semi truck down a hill to show that it worked<p>* Trevor appointed his brother Travis "Director of Hydrogen Production/Infrastructure" when his only experience was pouring concrete driveways<p>* The infamous "HTML5 supercomputer" comment: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPL-PbDUKrM" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPL-PbDUKrM</a>
Entertaining video on the downfall of Nikola <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oqqnkkTKVM" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oqqnkkTKVM</a>
Nikola is one of Crystal lang largest sponsors[0]. I wonder if this is going to have repercussions. It's no fault of the Crystal community but might cast a shadow nevertheless.<p>[0] <a href="https://crystal-lang.org/sponsors/" rel="nofollow">https://crystal-lang.org/sponsors/</a>
Hindenburg Research was right then.<p><a href="https://hindenburgresearch.com/nikola/" rel="nofollow">https://hindenburgresearch.com/nikola/</a>
Original title <i>Grand jury indicts Trevor Milton, founder of electric carmaker Nikola, on three counts of fraud</i><p>Suggested title which does fit : <i>Grand jury indicts Trevor Milton, founder of Nikola, on three counts of fraud</i>
Interesting how even after this was announced, their market cap is over $5b (<a href="https://www.google.com/finance/quote/NKLA:NASDAQ" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.com/finance/quote/NKLA:NASDAQ</a>) in the same ballpark as established car companies like Mazda (<a href="https://www.google.com/finance/quote/MZDAF:OTCMKTS" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.com/finance/quote/MZDAF:OTCMKTS</a>)
And yet NKLA still has a $5B market cap despite the entire company being 100% fraud. Amazing.<p>[1] <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/nkla" rel="nofollow">https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/nkla</a>
Literally when I first heard about the company, being interested in EV I started looking in to them.<p>10 minutes into a interview with the founder I was instantly convinced that they were a fake, fraud company.<p>They had a very clear strategy, and as a scammer, one must give him some credit. He managed to push a company to higher evaluation then GM based on literally nothing but marketing and false claims.
Been a long turbulent road, lots of interest payments, lots of downvotes, but soon I will be able to close out my massive short position that I opened 10 months ago against this company.<p>Reference: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24473631" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24473631</a>
Nikola looked like a fairly obvious scam to me the first time I've read about them.
I find it surprising and strange that they were able to hoodwink so many people.
My web services company built an eBay/Craigslist clone for Milton about 10 years ago. Trump level bullshitter but with an indomitable drive. Despite being a returned Mormon missionary Trevor has a loose ethical screw.
Nobody'll see this, but still,<p>> <i>Milton pled not guilty to the criminal charges in a Manhattan courtroom Thursday afternoon. He was freed on a $100 million bond secured against two of his properties in Utah. He is barred from contacting investors.</i><p>I saw a story a while ago somewhere about people selling houses for "wait what" amounts obviously more than they were worth, as a way to funnel cash around.<p>I wonder if the properties in question ($50m each?) were independently valued as such, or if the properties were deemed appropriately equitable (if that's the right way to put it) on the back of "I paid this much for this property".<p>If the latter, it's possible the bond's value is itself tied to a payout. Which is a bit meta.
Still has a $5B market cap. We live in problematic times where populism often matters more than any kind of objective reality.<p>Every stock seems to have a little bit of this factor.
> The SEC asked the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York to permanently bar him from acting as an officer at a company that issues securities, to disgorge all ill-gotten gains and pay a fine<p>Prison? Where is the prison part?
They even named the company to evoke Tesla and form an impression that they competing with them. This is a pure scam but now they have enough money to legitimize themselves. This is actually a great outcome for their investors, the CEO takes the blame and the company becomes legit. Just sad that this is accepted as normal. I will not be surprised if the stock sky rockets tomorrow.
> Last September, Hindenburg Research said in a paper that it was short-selling Nikola stock and labelled the company a "fraud", a charge it denied.<p>Shorts win! Thanks for the market function
It's hard to overstate the insane difficulty of running an automotive company profitably. Tesla is an exception. I don't sympathize with Trevor, but I can understand why he did what he did. It's a fraud, but I get it why it was done.
Obligatory mention of hilarious breakdown on the history of Nikola motors:<p><a href="https://youtu.be/1oqqnkkTKVM" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/1oqqnkkTKVM</a>
Most Silicon Valley “CRUD” startups have fraud baked in. It’s just whose holding the bag in the end that matters. Sometimes it’s the VC funds early in the stage, sometimes it’s the late stage investors ala WeWork SoftBank and usually it’s the retail bag holders post IPO.