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Nikola founder Trevor Milton found guilty of fraud
- robswc 4y agoIt’s about time. I just can’t believe how fraud of such a scale can happen. Reminds me of Bernie Madoff.
- missedthecue 4y agoNikola is still a $1.3 billion company if you really want your mind blown.
- hef19898 4y agoThat's the true insanity here. Did they ever sell a truck? In the meanwhile those un-innovative legacy manufacturers have the first working protypes on the road. And where is the Tesla Semi again?
- conorcleary 4y agoThe Tesla Semi is being produced right now for some contract deliveries, announced last week.
- jylam 4y agoThey announced a lot of things since the announcement in 2017 though. Let's not take Tesla's announcements as anything else than stunts for now, like, really.
- jylam 4y agoAccording to wikipedia they sold 93 trucks yes. All recalled because a seat-belt issue (that's how I got '93'), but it seems they have some trucks on the road right now, whatever the quality (and unlike Tesla, btw)
- Reason077 4y agoNikola delivered its first "Nikola Tre" electric truck on December 17, 2021. It announced the start of serial production in March 2022, and delivered 48 trucks in Q2 2022. According to the company, they remain on target to deliver 300-500 trucks by the end of 2022.
- kotaKat 4y agoAll they've basically done is decided to work with Iveco to electrify existing S-Way trucks. "As part of the cooperation – which incidentally includes CNH Industrial’s two commercial vehicles and drive brands Iveco and FPT Industrial – it will take over Nikola’s electrical technology and infotainment system. The semi will also be given a design jointly developed by Nikola and Italdesign."
- hef19898 4y agoSo badge engineering and electrifying existing vehickes, at a shockingly low volume, and based on fraud to hyoe all that justifies a 1 billion evaluation nowadys. Nice.
- Ekaros 4y agoStock markets were broken, and probably still are to some degree. Just look at valuations of "tech" companies and it should be quite clear why the numbers are so big.
- dagi3d 4y agoThat's the point, it's like they were super sloppy in the due diligence process/es, if there was any at all.
- Reason077 4y agoFar bigger frauds have happened. I'd argue Nikola's fraud was pretty minor in comparison to the likes of Madoff, Enron, or Theranos. At least the only victims here were investors - many of whom probably realised or suspected that Milton was exaggerating the company's progress, but were happy to play along as long as it kept pumping the value of their investments.
- skinnymuch 4y agoCheck Nikola spots like the subreddit, Twitter, Stocktwits. Lots of bag holders who are technically investors, but really just ordinary middle class people in deep losses from Nikola. Still nothing close to the examples you gave but Theranos is as blatantly a con from the get go as Nikola.
- Reason077 4y agoI think the difference with Theranos is that most of us were genuinely surprised and shocked when it all started to unravel to the extent that it did. With Nikola, there were plenty of skeptics right from the start. The only surprise what that it went on for as long as it did, and that the stock price kept going up even after much of their deception was exposed.
- europeanguy 4y ago[flagged]
- leobg 4y agoYou made a new account to post that?
- zoklet-enjoyer 4y agoHe has comments from before this thread was created.
- leobg 4y agoYou are right. My bad. Had been fooled by the karma of 1, and not checked comment threads. Sorry.
- europeanguy 4y agoNo worries. I regularly drop old accounts because I don't like the fact that in HN you can't delete comments. That's really bad for privacy. So, I regularly changing accounts to prevent anyone from building a long profile from public history. So yeah, the fact that I made a negative comment about Elon Musk and the fact that my account is new are totally unrelated.
- 0xy 4y ago"We think we can do self driving in a year" (very unrealistic prediction) versus "we have a working truck prototype" (literally false). Being an optimist isn't fraud.
- ahahahahah 4y ago
- Kwpolska 4y agoCybertruck? Twitter? Hyperloop? Is the Las Vegas thing with slow Teslas in a tunnel not fraud?
- joering2 4y ago>Trevor Milton lied to Nikola’s investors — over and over and over again. That’s fraud, plain and simple, >He faced up to 25 years in prison if convicted on all four counts. If he would have taken large subsidies, like Musk did, it would've been much harder to jail him. Then he could let his imagination go - promise investors that they will make 100% return on investment per year ("buy Tesla for $30,000 and you make that or more per year renting it as a robotaxi"), promise superfast underground tunnels and deliver insecure tunnel with no ventilation/safety exists, with cars moving at 40 mpg, promise solar roofs, and many other things with absolutely no liability at all.
- veltas 4y ago> Hindenburg said the truck was “towed to the top of a hill on a remote stretch of road and simply filmed it rolling down the hill.” It was then used in a video, which Nikola said was created by a third party, in which the truck appeared to be driving on its own propulsion on flat roads. It's all relative. How much is hype or marketing, and how much is just dishonesty? I think it depends on the field. I mean even the term "AI" is fraudulent whenever it's used, really. But investors who actually do the most basic diligence in their research know the shot. Filming a truck rolling down a hill is pretty dishonest though. I mean trucks aren't a 'concept' they're a real thing already.
- joering2 4y agoI don't find it dishonest, rather brilliant he found a hill the truck rolled down from. The whole ordeal was the weakest chain of the whole lawsuit - most of the time the tech showed is not 100% working. The truck showed would not be on sale anyways, but obviously whatever would leave a factory. Musk showed houses that did not even have real solar panels even thought he told people in their faces these are solar panels. Seriously, the only reason Musk is not facing 25 years prison is because he is too rich to jail. With enough runaway, this could have been Milton or Holmes.
- veltas 4y agoI mean it can be brilliant and dishonest. But it's not that brilliant. I don't know if that's what he was accused of fraud for.
- keepquestioning 4y agoI remember when some FAANG buddies of mine were gloating about gains made of NKLA. It reminded me no one gives a fuck if their money is made by corruption, fraud or unethical activity. The world is truly a "Fuck you, I've got mine" type of place. Never forget it, and never trust anyone. I see the same story playing out in the Celsius network crap.
- TylerE 4y agoI want to see a fund that shorts whatever the fintech bros were shilling 6 months ago.
- qaq 4y agofor what purpose? if you want a short position just short ARKK
- neilfrndes 4y agoThe SARK (Short ARK) ETF has almost doubled since it's inception last year. https://www.axsinvestments.com/sark/ https://www.axsinvestments.com/sark/
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ahahahahah 4y ago> buddies of mine Yeah, your anecdote says more about you than it does about the world in general.
- simonh 4y agoIt really isn’t. I’m kind of fed up with people, who live at a time of unprecedented wealth freedom and opportunity, complaining how bad things are while the state of the world around them improves dramatically. I was reading about poverty in the UK recently, the numbers are poor, but then I noticed that poverty is defined by a proportion of average wages. That means as wages go up, so does the poverty threshold. It turns out people in poverty in the UK now have double the spending power of those in the 1980s. I’m not saying poverty doesn’t exist, or that these people don’t need help. There are real issues of health, nutrition, opportunities and fairness. No question, but when someone compares poverty statistics over time, they’re not comparing the same things at all. My wife is Chinese so I’ve seen the transformation there, where hundreds of millions of people have been elevated not just out of poverty, but into the urban middle class. Africa is undergoing a huge transformation. I’ve been lucky enough to do a lot of travelling going back to the 90s, so I’ve seen how much places have changed over the decades. It turns out individual economic and social freedoms, of property, labour, travel and association work. Give people opportunities and they build vibrant productive societies. I’ve watched them do it.
- c7b 4y agoI remember that company from an FT article where they were forced to admit that they'd let their trucks roll down a gentle slope for promotional videos to give the impression that they could drive. Not surprised by this outcome, good if they get caught, albeit a bit late.
- sidcool 4y agoTrevor deserves it. I have been following Nikola out of curiosity and there were glaring red flags all the way. So many inconsistencies across interviews. Repeatedly saying "It's not a pusher", "I can out Elon, Elon", "We are vertically integrated" bla bla.
- Reason077 4y ago
- rvz 4y ago
- javawizard 4y agoI'll bite. How so?
- rvz 4y agoThis is why [0] > The Securities and Exchange Commission announced today that Elon Musk, CEO and Chairman of Silicon Valley-based Tesla Inc., has agreed to settle the securities fraud charge brought by the SEC against him last week. The SEC also today charged Tesla with failing to have required disclosure controls and procedures relating to Musk’s tweets, a charge that Tesla has agreed to settle. Essentially by agreeing to pay for the charges, he already told us he committed securities fraud without admitting it. [0] https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-226 https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-226
- ajdegol 4y agoIs that what he was addressing in his TED talk here https://youtu.be/cdZZpaB2kDM https://youtu.be/cdZZpaB2kDM At 27:46 mark?
- phpthrowaway99 4y agoOh yes, and when I paid my speeding ticket last week I proved I was smuggling drugs down the interstate.
- TheLoafOfBread 4y agoThen Musk with his "Paint it black" Autopilot/FSD video should be in jail for fraud as well. What is the difference here? Both products weren't nowhere near where marketing was trying to show.
- jp0d 4y agoI'm not a fan of Elon Musk, but I think you're oversimplifying things here!
- rvz 4y agoAlso "Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured." was complete securities fraud and he paid for the charges. So by paying for the charges, he told the SEC he is a fraudster without telling them he is a fraudster.
- coffeeblack 4y agoExcept he actually did consider it and negotiated with investors. How is it fraught when you investigate a business opportunity? So many salty shorts itt.
- kgwgk 4y ago"Funding secured" it not exactly the same as "will negotiate with investors", is it?
- coffeeblack 4y agoMaybe he did. But a letter of intent isn’t the same as a contract. Yet it warrants the statement “funding secured”.
- kgwgk 4y agoMaybe he did... What we know for sure is that he settled with the SEC and that a court ruled recently that there was nothing concrete and that it was inaccurate to say so. "No reasonable jury could find that Mr. Musk did not act recklessly given his clear knowledge of the discussions." "There had been no discussion about what the purchase price would be for a share of stock. Nor had there been any discussion about what percentage of the company the PIF would own or the total amount of money the PIF would contribute." What we don't know yet is how much damages he will be told to pay. https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/court-says-musk-recklessly-tweeted-that-funding-secured-taking-tesla-private-2022-05-11/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/court-...
- raphlinus 4y agoSome more wild shady spy activity against whistleblowers documented here: https://twitter.com/HindenburgRes/status/1575557272532811778 https://twitter.com/HindenburgRes/status/1575557272532811778
- fastball 4y ago[flagged]
- TheLoafOfBread 4y agoHow dare those haters point out that he is selling Full Self Driving which does not Full Self Drive your car for almost a decade. Outrageous.
- fastball 4y agoThank you for helping make my point.