12 ms·

Trevor Milton Out of Nikola Motors

81 points by xoxoy 6y ago

ZephyrBlu 6y ago
> 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 Wow. I wonder if he "resigned" or jumped ship. Either way, it doesn't look good. Theranos 2.0?
- chance_bear 6y ago
  Very excited to see how this is going to be held up as a failure of tech.
  - ngngngng 6y ago
    I'm very excited for another audiobook about a tech startup scam to listen to on a future road trip. On that note, Bad Blood in audiobook form is excellent for that purpose.
stevesimmons 6y ago
The Financial Times has had daily coverage of this in a great series of articles. Unfortunately paywalled. https://www.ft.com/search?q=nikola https://www.ft.com/search?q=nikola
edoceo 6y ago
""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."" Oof. And he still owns 20% of a company created via SPAC. How does any of this work? How has this passed any diligence?
- dreamcompiler 6y ago
  It seems that FOMO always wins over due diligence these days. It's a great time to start a billion-dollar scam.
  - austincheney 6y ago
    WeWork.
    - xmprt 6y ago
      WeWork was less of a scam and more just highly overvalued. Things like Theranos (and probably Nikola) are actual scams.
      - ralph84 6y ago
        The self-dealing between the company and the founder was pretty scammy.
        vkou 6y ago
        They were, but they were hardly a blip on the company's sorry financials.
      - duskwuff 6y ago
        At least WeWork didn't need any revolutionary technology to execute its business plan. Theranos depended (and Nikola depends) upon specific technologies -- if the technology isn't there, failure is inevitable.
        ReptileMan 6y ago
        >At least WeWork didn't need any revolutionary technology to execute its business plan Just a miracle
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- jsemrau 6y ago
  Reminds me of Adam Neumann of weWork. I still think the business model has a lot of merit, especially in post-covid times. Yet, CEO's with self-dealings are always a red flag.
- Kosirich 6y ago
  Same question. I feel either I'm incredibly naive and/or don't get investing at all. By the former I mean that I believe there are institutional mechanism that stops a company going public and getting serious investments just based on grandiose idea with no backing in what is technically feasible in a specified amount of time. By the latter I point to the fact that institutional investors have splashed serious cash without doing apparently any checks(?) Also, does anyone remember he promised a new battery with 50% more capacity than current lithium ones? https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2019/11/24/nikola-motors-bombshell-battery-claim-irks-experts-who-think-its-secret-may-lie-in-sulfur/#b8e0fd87d896 https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2019/11/24/nikola-m... I see FT has covered also this side of story: https://www.ft.com/content/dc4b3e05-bf7c-482c-9241-5296dfb1d7b5 https://www.ft.com/content/dc4b3e05-bf7c-482c-9241-5296dfb1d... Just for this promises the owner deserves a "good thrashing".
  - NotSammyHagar 6y ago
    Anyone apparently can merge with a SPAC (an existing company that is already a listed stock) by basically buying a very weak company. After the merger now you are on the stock market! There's no mechanism of testing the company before the merge, it just happens if they have the money to buy the weaker company.
    - marvin 6y ago
      To be fair, getting listed on the stock exchange before being a billion dollar behemoth should be legal/possible in the first place.
      - mrpopo 6y ago
        So that more multi-million dollars scams can pop up?
        bhupy 6y ago
        No, so that public investors can participate in growth just like private institutional investors (and rich accredited investors). Preventing million dollar corporations from going public is an extremely ham-fisted way of policing/preventing scams.
- NotSammyHagar 6y ago
  Don't worry guys, gm carefully studied whether they are a real company and everything. Kind of like how they get the ev market and are going to crush tesla and make an attractive and successful business selling evs.
  - extropy 6y ago
    I understand the deal was structured quite a bit in GMs favor. IMHO it's very possible Nikola could become GMs EV brand, similar to Polestar for Volvo. And now with GM representative being the new chairman, it's looking more like it.
    - vkou 6y ago
      That requires Nikola to either have a valuable brand, or valuable technology. It's not clear that the former is true, and it's pretty clear that the latter is not.
ghostcluster 6y ago
From his Wikipedia page: > 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] 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. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Milton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Milton
- darksaints 6y ago
  What a phenomenally quick fall from grace.
  - wartijn_ 6y ago
    I'm actually surprised how much the stock is still worth. It looks[0] like they're still worth more than when they went public in June. Btw: when the Hindenburg report was published, it was also discussed on hn[1] [0]https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/NKLA/ https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/NKLA/ [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24436721 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24436721
bitxbit 6y ago
What a scam. I wonder what this does to market confidence. Yet another sign that we are getting really close to a crash.
- nl 6y ago
  You realize this is exactly how short sellers in the market are supposed to operate, right? It will give everyone confidence the market is operating correctly.
  - bitxbit 6y ago
    Disagree. This is yet another sign that there’s enough shenanigans happening in the market. If something this blatant can happen in the wide open imagine what other companies are hiding in the dark.
valgaze 6y ago
1st-person video of Milton jogging next to one of the vehicles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LSrvRMgIqw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LSrvRMgIqw
- BigCatStuff 6y ago
  This video is from July of 2020, and at this time I don't doubt that they have a semi-truck chassis with a fuel cell drivetrain in it. However, whether this truck performs even close to the specifications and capabilities of what Nikola claims is never substantiated. Fuel cell vehicles have been around for a long time, and I presume it's not that difficult to put a basic prototype together with amount of capital available to Nikola.
mandeepj 6y ago
How legitimate is freightwaves.com ? No one else is reporting this news
- arthurcolle 6y ago
  Very legitimate
- reducesuffering 6y ago
  Very legitimate in the trucking industry
- zwily 6y ago
  https://twitter.com/nikolatrevor/status/1307927801966866438?s=21 https://twitter.com/nikolatrevor/status/1307927801966866438?...
m0zg 6y ago
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.
- bitxbit 6y ago
  This so much. He did it out in the open and admitted repeatedly that everything is outsourced. I mean anyone with a million or two can put together a hydrogen fuel cell truck that “runs”. No science/engineering background or even passing interest in learning the tech he sells.
  - nickik 6y ago
    The only company fully vertically integrted from the beginning and outsourced literally everything at the same time.
- graycrow 6y ago
  This. Couldn't agree more.
- pmcollins 6y ago
  yeah, to me the name alone was such a red flag. i didn’t think anyone would fall for such a comically obvious attempt to ride tesla’s coattails, without a product or a ceo with any semblance of technical knowledge. sadly i was wrong.
praveen9920 6y ago
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. 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.
- cynix 6y ago
  > he was very confident about technology That might help if he actually knew anything about technology though... > "The entire infotainment system is a HTML 5 super computer," Milton said. "That's the standard language for computer programmers around the world, so using it let's us build our own chips. And HTML 5 is very secure. Every component is linked on the data network, all speaking the same language. It's not a bunch of separate systems that somehow still manage to communicate."
  - nl 6y ago
    >> he was very confident about technology > That might help if he actually knew anything about technology though... Or maybe that would make him less confident! :)
  - Scipio_Afri 6y ago
    What the, can you provide a source for that cause wow
    - tdeck 6y ago
      https://www.truckinginfo.com/330475/whats-behind-the-grille-of-the-new-nikola-hydrogen-electric-truck https://www.truckinginfo.com/330475/whats-behind-the-grille-...
  - tdeck 6y ago
    I like how this quote says "a HTML" and uses let's wrong too. Seems like whoever transcribed it did a poor job.
  - 6y ago
hmate9 6y ago
Cant wait for the Netflix documentary.
cryptofistMonk 6y ago
I'm shocked to see no mention of the tweets by David Bateman that seem to have set this off https://twitter.com/davidbateman/status/1307212066017521667?s=19 https://twitter.com/davidbateman/status/1307212066017521667?...
- nl 6y ago
  Did you link the wrong tweet? The one you linked (https://twitter.com/davidbateman/status/1307212066017521667?s=19 https://twitter.com/davidbateman/status/1307212066017521667?...) seems to be some douchy DMs where he tried to get a girl to hook up with some random guy in Vegas. But that doesn't seem to have anything to do with the financial state of his company or lying about products?
  - reducesuffering 6y ago
    That's the right tweet thread. It seems there are other allegations at Trevor that might be the reason he's stepping down. The thread is allegations that he entrapped a long time, mentally ill, ex-friend in an extortion case to put him in jail. The reason? Because the ex-friend was posting texts of Trevor attempting to prostitute women. His resignation post[0] includes "I intend to defend myself against false allegations" so most likely the resignation reason is not the company, but personal allegations. Apparently there is a NYT article incoming. [0] https://twitter.com/nikolatrevor/status/1307927801966866438 https://twitter.com/nikolatrevor/status/1307927801966866438
altdatathrow 6y ago
Damn, that was their only paying customer [1]. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/nikola-earnings-only-revenue-solar-panels-founder-chairman-trevor-milton-2020-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/nikola-earnings-only-revenue...
- nodesocket 6y ago
  CNBC Melissa Lee really dug into him about adding a solar roof to his Utah personal home[1] and claiming it as revenue (100% actually) of Nikola. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=my08ZINPgx8&ab_channel=CNBCTelevision https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=my08ZINPgx8&ab_channel=CNBCT...
  - detaro 6y ago
    Related, apparently he claimed in an interview that the company HQ had a large (3 MW) solar installation, and it hasn't. Why lie about something so inconsequential that anyone can find out is false by looking at it?
    - vkou 6y ago
      Because when the entire firm is a house of cards, with one lie after another, adding another little lie won't change anything. I doubt he can even keep track of what he lies about.
- wave_function 6y ago
  I can't help but think about this clip whenever I hear that the CEO was their only customer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5elYqy0gaU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5elYqy0gaU
miked85 6y ago
I was waiting for the "HTML 5 super computer" Trevor touted...too bad.
frequentnapper 6y ago
How is the stock still at $34?
DeonPenny 6y ago
These tech scammers out do themselves year after year.
nickik 6y ago
Surprising nobody. 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. 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.
jpm_sd 6y ago
Additional details from the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/21/business/nikola-trevor-milton-resigns.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/21/business/nikola-trevor-mi... 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.”
perardi 6y ago
…did it not trip anyone’s early-warning sensors that they named their company Nikola, so that they could piggyback on Tesla’s name recognition?
JamesSwift 6y ago
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. 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. [1] - https://www.reddit.com/r/NikolaCorporation https://www.reddit.com/r/NikolaCorporation
- csours 6y ago
  Every startup has some cheerleaders who don't care too much about reality. While a company is private, you're only allowed to invest if you are a cheerleader, and you're invited to leave if you become too critical. It's great to have a vision, but dangerous to confuse the vision with reality.

81 points by xoxoy 6y ago

> 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 Wow. I wonder if he "resigned" or jumped ship. Either way, it doesn't look good. Theranos 2.0?

chance_bear 6y ago
Very excited to see how this is going to be held up as a failure of tech.
- ngngngng 6y ago
  I'm very excited for another audiobook about a tech startup scam to listen to on a future road trip. On that note, Bad Blood in audiobook form is excellent for that purpose.

stevesimmons 6y ago

The Financial Times has had daily coverage of this in a great series of articles. Unfortunately paywalled. https://www.ft.com/search?q=nikola https://www.ft.com/search?q=nikola

edoceo 6y ago

""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."" Oof. And he still owns 20% of a company created via SPAC. How does any of this work? How has this passed any diligence?

dreamcompiler 6y ago
It seems that FOMO always wins over due diligence these days. It's a great time to start a billion-dollar scam.
- austincheney 6y ago
  WeWork.
  - xmprt 6y ago
    WeWork was less of a scam and more just highly overvalued. Things like Theranos (and probably Nikola) are actual scams.
    - ralph84 6y ago
      The self-dealing between the company and the founder was pretty scammy.
      - vkou 6y ago
        They were, but they were hardly a blip on the company's sorry financials.
    - duskwuff 6y ago
      At least WeWork didn't need any revolutionary technology to execute its business plan. Theranos depended (and Nikola depends) upon specific technologies -- if the technology isn't there, failure is inevitable.
      - ReptileMan 6y ago
        >At least WeWork didn't need any revolutionary technology to execute its business plan Just a miracle
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jsemrau 6y ago
Reminds me of Adam Neumann of weWork. I still think the business model has a lot of merit, especially in post-covid times. Yet, CEO's with self-dealings are always a red flag.
Kosirich 6y ago
Same question. I feel either I'm incredibly naive and/or don't get investing at all. By the former I mean that I believe there are institutional mechanism that stops a company going public and getting serious investments just based on grandiose idea with no backing in what is technically feasible in a specified amount of time. By the latter I point to the fact that institutional investors have splashed serious cash without doing apparently any checks(?) Also, does anyone remember he promised a new battery with 50% more capacity than current lithium ones? https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2019/11/24/nikola-motors-bombshell-battery-claim-irks-experts-who-think-its-secret-may-lie-in-sulfur/#b8e0fd87d896 https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2019/11/24/nikola-m... I see FT has covered also this side of story: https://www.ft.com/content/dc4b3e05-bf7c-482c-9241-5296dfb1d7b5 https://www.ft.com/content/dc4b3e05-bf7c-482c-9241-5296dfb1d... Just for this promises the owner deserves a "good thrashing".
- NotSammyHagar 6y ago
  Anyone apparently can merge with a SPAC (an existing company that is already a listed stock) by basically buying a very weak company. After the merger now you are on the stock market! There's no mechanism of testing the company before the merge, it just happens if they have the money to buy the weaker company.
  - marvin 6y ago
    To be fair, getting listed on the stock exchange before being a billion dollar behemoth should be legal/possible in the first place.
    - mrpopo 6y ago
      So that more multi-million dollars scams can pop up?
      - bhupy 6y ago
        No, so that public investors can participate in growth just like private institutional investors (and rich accredited investors). Preventing million dollar corporations from going public is an extremely ham-fisted way of policing/preventing scams.
NotSammyHagar 6y ago
Don't worry guys, gm carefully studied whether they are a real company and everything. Kind of like how they get the ev market and are going to crush tesla and make an attractive and successful business selling evs.
- extropy 6y ago
  I understand the deal was structured quite a bit in GMs favor. IMHO it's very possible Nikola could become GMs EV brand, similar to Polestar for Volvo. And now with GM representative being the new chairman, it's looking more like it.
  - vkou 6y ago
    That requires Nikola to either have a valuable brand, or valuable technology. It's not clear that the former is true, and it's pretty clear that the latter is not.

ghostcluster 6y ago

From his Wikipedia page: > 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] 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. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Milton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Milton

darksaints 6y ago
What a phenomenally quick fall from grace.
- wartijn_ 6y ago
  I'm actually surprised how much the stock is still worth. It looks[0] like they're still worth more than when they went public in June. Btw: when the Hindenburg report was published, it was also discussed on hn[1] [0]https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/NKLA/ https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/NKLA/ [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24436721 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24436721

bitxbit 6y ago

What a scam. I wonder what this does to market confidence. Yet another sign that we are getting really close to a crash.

nl 6y ago
You realize this is exactly how short sellers in the market are supposed to operate, right? It will give everyone confidence the market is operating correctly.
- bitxbit 6y ago
  Disagree. This is yet another sign that there’s enough shenanigans happening in the market. If something this blatant can happen in the wide open imagine what other companies are hiding in the dark.

valgaze 6y ago

1st-person video of Milton jogging next to one of the vehicles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LSrvRMgIqw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LSrvRMgIqw

BigCatStuff 6y ago
This video is from July of 2020, and at this time I don't doubt that they have a semi-truck chassis with a fuel cell drivetrain in it. However, whether this truck performs even close to the specifications and capabilities of what Nikola claims is never substantiated. Fuel cell vehicles have been around for a long time, and I presume it's not that difficult to put a basic prototype together with amount of capital available to Nikola.

mandeepj 6y ago

How legitimate is freightwaves.com ? No one else is reporting this news

arthurcolle 6y ago
Very legitimate
reducesuffering 6y ago
Very legitimate in the trucking industry
zwily 6y ago
https://twitter.com/nikolatrevor/status/1307927801966866438?s=21 https://twitter.com/nikolatrevor/status/1307927801966866438?...

m0zg 6y ago

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.

bitxbit 6y ago
This so much. He did it out in the open and admitted repeatedly that everything is outsourced. I mean anyone with a million or two can put together a hydrogen fuel cell truck that “runs”. No science/engineering background or even passing interest in learning the tech he sells.
- nickik 6y ago
  The only company fully vertically integrted from the beginning and outsourced literally everything at the same time.
graycrow 6y ago
This. Couldn't agree more.
pmcollins 6y ago
yeah, to me the name alone was such a red flag. i didn’t think anyone would fall for such a comically obvious attempt to ride tesla’s coattails, without a product or a ceo with any semblance of technical knowledge. sadly i was wrong.

praveen9920 6y ago

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. 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.

cynix 6y ago
> he was very confident about technology That might help if he actually knew anything about technology though... > "The entire infotainment system is a HTML 5 super computer," Milton said. "That's the standard language for computer programmers around the world, so using it let's us build our own chips. And HTML 5 is very secure. Every component is linked on the data network, all speaking the same language. It's not a bunch of separate systems that somehow still manage to communicate."
- nl 6y ago
  >> he was very confident about technology > That might help if he actually knew anything about technology though... Or maybe that would make him less confident! :)
- Scipio_Afri 6y ago
  What the, can you provide a source for that cause wow
  - tdeck 6y ago
    https://www.truckinginfo.com/330475/whats-behind-the-grille-of-the-new-nikola-hydrogen-electric-truck https://www.truckinginfo.com/330475/whats-behind-the-grille-...
- tdeck 6y ago
  I like how this quote says "a HTML" and uses let's wrong too. Seems like whoever transcribed it did a poor job.
- 6y ago

hmate9 6y ago

Cant wait for the Netflix documentary.

cryptofistMonk 6y ago

I'm shocked to see no mention of the tweets by David Bateman that seem to have set this off https://twitter.com/davidbateman/status/1307212066017521667?s=19 https://twitter.com/davidbateman/status/1307212066017521667?...

nl 6y ago
Did you link the wrong tweet? The one you linked (https://twitter.com/davidbateman/status/1307212066017521667?s=19 https://twitter.com/davidbateman/status/1307212066017521667?...) seems to be some douchy DMs where he tried to get a girl to hook up with some random guy in Vegas. But that doesn't seem to have anything to do with the financial state of his company or lying about products?
- reducesuffering 6y ago
  That's the right tweet thread. It seems there are other allegations at Trevor that might be the reason he's stepping down. The thread is allegations that he entrapped a long time, mentally ill, ex-friend in an extortion case to put him in jail. The reason? Because the ex-friend was posting texts of Trevor attempting to prostitute women. His resignation post[0] includes "I intend to defend myself against false allegations" so most likely the resignation reason is not the company, but personal allegations. Apparently there is a NYT article incoming. [0] https://twitter.com/nikolatrevor/status/1307927801966866438 https://twitter.com/nikolatrevor/status/1307927801966866438

altdatathrow 6y ago

Damn, that was their only paying customer [1]. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/nikola-earnings-only-revenue-solar-panels-founder-chairman-trevor-milton-2020-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/nikola-earnings-only-revenue...

nodesocket 6y ago
CNBC Melissa Lee really dug into him about adding a solar roof to his Utah personal home[1] and claiming it as revenue (100% actually) of Nikola. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=my08ZINPgx8&ab_channel=CNBCTelevision https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=my08ZINPgx8&ab_channel=CNBCT...
- detaro 6y ago
  Related, apparently he claimed in an interview that the company HQ had a large (3 MW) solar installation, and it hasn't. Why lie about something so inconsequential that anyone can find out is false by looking at it?
  - vkou 6y ago
    Because when the entire firm is a house of cards, with one lie after another, adding another little lie won't change anything. I doubt he can even keep track of what he lies about.
wave_function 6y ago
I can't help but think about this clip whenever I hear that the CEO was their only customer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5elYqy0gaU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5elYqy0gaU

miked85 6y ago

I was waiting for the "HTML 5 super computer" Trevor touted...too bad.

frequentnapper 6y ago

How is the stock still at $34?

DeonPenny 6y ago

These tech scammers out do themselves year after year.

nickik 6y ago

Surprising nobody. 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. 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.

jpm_sd 6y ago

Additional details from the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/21/business/nikola-trevor-milton-resigns.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/21/business/nikola-trevor-mi... 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.”

perardi 6y ago

…did it not trip anyone’s early-warning sensors that they named their company Nikola, so that they could piggyback on Tesla’s name recognition?

JamesSwift 6y ago

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. 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. [1] - https://www.reddit.com/r/NikolaCorporation https://www.reddit.com/r/NikolaCorporation

csours 6y ago
Every startup has some cheerleaders who don't care too much about reality. While a company is private, you're only allowed to invest if you are a cheerleader, and you're invited to leave if you become too critical. It's great to have a vision, but dangerous to confuse the vision with reality.