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Trevor Milton's Nikola case dropped by SEC following Trump pardon
- yencabulator 1y agoPreviously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27996321 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27996321 It's the party of rules for thee, not for me.
- sudditer 1y ago[flagged]
- lokar 1y agoIt turns out all of the "institutions", customs and traditions, not technically enforced by law, had an important effect on restraining corruption. Turns out they were only really enforced by the public, but with the general (intentional, IMO) erosion in faith in the government and institutions, the public no longer cares.
- estearum 1y agoWell, many of these actions are illegal. But law is not self-enforcing. If POTUS is the origin of the corruption and his party in Congress doesn't impeach or otherwise constrain, then he's allowed to do whatever he wants.
- lokar 1y agoIt seems like there are a lot of things that are either illegal, or somehow forbidden, where the only enforcement allowed is impeachment and removal. Given how partisanship has turned out in the US, this is a major flaw in the constitution IMO (along with it being to hard to amend).
- overfeed 1y ago> Well, many of these actions are illegal. SCOTUS ruled that official actions of POTUS can't be illegal, and can't even be investigated.
- ahmeneeroe-v2 1y agoThis "rounds to true" at the middle school level, but isn't actually true at all at the level of a civically-minded adult. Downvoting because I don't think it meets the bar at HN.
- kelnos 1y agoYou better believe that if a Democrat were in the White House doing similar things, the conservative wing of SCOTUS would have voted the other way. I no longer consider SCOTUS rulings as good measures of what the law actually is. Instead I look to the lower court decisions that brought us there. If they agree with SCOTUS, or there's no consensus, then sure, ok. But if the lower court rulings are largely the opposite of the final SCOTUS rulings -- especially if the lower court judges include folks appointed by Trump or another conservative president -- I think it's fair to assume that SCOTUS's decision is partisan, ideological bullshit that bears little resemblance to actual law in the US. It pains me to say or even think this, because in the past I've had a lot of respect for our Supreme Court, but that respect is completely gone at this point.
- estearum 1y ago+1 and IMO this is substantiated even if you ignore actual policy/political differences. This SCOTUS has used the shadow docket to overturn (without actually ruling on) lower court decisions extremely frequently. These “decisions” (really delays in the administration’s favor) are increasingly offered without rationale and even without the majority Justices signing their names to the order. IMO they know the administration is way afoul of the law (which is why so many lower courts are finding such in 50-150 page considerations) but they don’t want to have to decide on that. So instead they’re relying on the shadow docket and not providing any rationale or signatures to try to escape the shame they know history will bring upon them.
- twright 1y ago"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to whit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
- CamperBob2 1y agoI'm always annoyed by that saying. It's basically an indictment of government power (and power in general), not just "conservatism." It could apply as well to Stalin and Mao as to Trump and the Bushes.
- _DeadFred_ 1y agoWhen I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because this is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because this is according to my principles. - Frank Herbert
- rtkwe 1y agoJust take it for what it is as a commentary on US politics instead of trying to expand it beyond it's intended reach.
- CamperBob2 1y agoWhat we're learning these days is that there is nothing special or interesting about US politics. We're all Turks now, having freely elected our Erdogan.
- rtkwe 1y agoIt is however still a specific statement about one portion of the US political landscape. Lots of correct statement look wrong when you distort their intended scope.
- BJones12 1y agoThe trouble with politics now is that it has become a religion. You can't elect boring people anymore, because doing so would remove the ability for adherents to engage in religious fervor. Before politics can be boring and fair, adherence to actual religion must be rebuilt to satisfy the people's need for religion, so that politics doesn't have to.
- throw0101a 1y ago> It's the party of rules for thee, not for me. Hypocrisy is a virtue: > It’s best to understand that fascists see hypocrisy as a virtue. It’s how they signal that the things they are doing to people were never meant to be equally applied. > It’s not an inconsistency. It’s very consistent to the only true fascist value, which is domination. > It’s very important to understand, fascists don’t just see hypocrisy as a necessary evil or an unintended side-effect. > It’s the purpose. The ability to enjoy yourself the thing you’re able to deny others, because you dominate, is the whole point. > For fascists, hypocrisy is a great virtue — the greatest. * https://mastodon.social/@JuliusGoat/109551955251655267 https://mastodon.social/@JuliusGoat/109551955251655267 * Via: https://kottke.org/25/03/for-fascists-hypocrisy-is-a-virtue https://kottke.org/25/03/for-fascists-hypocrisy-is-a-virtue
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 1y agoDisgusting
- rhetocj23 1y ago[flagged]
- Fricken 1y agoWhat a decade. It's hard to picture the next one being better.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ToDougie 1y agoLest we forget: "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." 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-... - April 24, 2019
- pinkmuffinere 1y agoWow, this is like an instant cure for imposter syndrome. I might hang this on my wall.
- nerdsniper 1y agoWow. Quotes like these really illustrate to me that I may have some massive blind spots and lack a lot of skills that help make people lots of money. This fellow is worth $3 billion and just spouts gibberish. What skills does he have that I completely lack?
- ddddang 1y ago[dead]
- maxbond 1y agoHindenburg was wise to pack up shop ahead of this administration. This is a greenlight for fraud.
- jordanb 1y agoReally interesting how the thesis for short investigation as a investment strategy relied on 1) investors caring that management is lying and being unwilling to invest in known fraud and 2) the United States being a nation of laws. Both seemed like solid bets as recently as a decade ago
- Y_Y 1y agoI realise now you were most likely referring to Hindenburg Research https://hindenburgresearch.com/ https://hindenburgresearch.com/ But some may find amusing my initial interpretation, that this was an oblique reference to Paul von Hindenburg effectively abdicating to a different government (which has been likened by some to the current USA leadership). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933
- maxbond 1y agoYes, I'm referring to Hindenburg Research, apologies. They were the ones who initially exposed Milton and called it quits earlier this year, presumably because they foresaw a regulatory environment where fraud was no longer reliably prosecuted.
- sephamorr 1y agoI had the same thought as GP though, thought it was very clever.
- philistine 1y agoPaul never abdicated or willingly ceded power. He became too senile to understand what was happening around him. The fact this was hidden to the Germans at the time and it looked like nazi support hides the reality.
- __mharrison__ 1y agoSo much corruption
- brcmthrowaway 1y agoWhat are the strategies here?
- bflesch 1y agoDepends on your set of values.
- jjcm 1y agoPossibly a more extreme one, but I got citizenship elsewhere. Australia taxes more, make no mistake, and the earning potential is less. Living in Australia though was the biggest improvement to quality life I've ever had. I've lived in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Jose, SF, Portland, Seattle, Honolulu, and Sydney, and Sydney is #1 by such a large margin it shocked me. My taxes went to funding public transportation that works. They funded government services like ServiceNSW that made me shocked how bad the DMV experiences were in the states. There's nationalized healthcare where I no longer had to worry if my friends could afford healthcare. The government has plenty of its own issues, but none of them felt as on the edge of the event horizon as US politics do. I felt safe in Australia. With how things are again, I'm so glad I hold a passport with a kangaroo.
- brcmthrowaway 1y agoVery smart, I will get Canadian citizenship Do you work for a US company in Australia?
- jjcm 1y ago> Do you work for a US company in Australia? I worked for Atlassian at the time, so kinda both. An Australian company fiscally located in the US.
- codyb 1y ago“I don’t know him, but I was… they say it was very unfair. And they say the thing that he did wrong was he was one of the first people that supported a gentleman named Donald Trump for president,” the President said then. The filing last month noted that “President Trump expressly decided here that Milton is factually innocent, the pardon did, contrary to the debtors’ assertions, wipe the slate clean.” Absolutely disgusting. Now he's trying to pull 69 million in legal fees from the company.
- candlemas 1y ago"Milton, 42, and his wife donated more than $1.8 million to a Trump re-election campaign fund less than a month before the November election, according to the Federal Election Commission." https://apnews.com/article/nikola-trevor-milton-fraud-trump-pardon-3fcebb0a3820cecb205656f2dc3f6764 https://apnews.com/article/nikola-trevor-milton-fraud-trump-...
- vjvjvjvjghv 1y agoYou have to respect that Trump is not even trying to hide anything
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Tadpole9181 1y agoNo, I really don't.
- ptaffs 1y agoSo, who loses money here and why aren't they upset? And are they important enough to worry the president. Those of us without stock aren't direct victims here, but someone must be. Bosch is mentioned in one story, I wonder what they're doing. My observation is lots of friends of the president are being forgiven crime, such as the J6ers, who if you believe the documentaries were violent toward the police, but the police aren't minding the pardons?
- edot 1y agoFormer shareholders, whoever currently holds the assets of the company as Nikola is in bankruptcy. Unless those people buy influence, they’re worthless to the current admin. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/19/us/politics/sec-trump-clemency.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/19/us/politics/sec-trump-cle... Each of the above guys did the smart thing of buying influence (Milton retained the attorney general’s brother as his lawyer, for example). In the past you’d have to hide that better, but now it’s out in the open. One of the guys mentioned in the article is now cleared to work on his new crypto venture. Of course. Edit: not to “both sides” this, but it is interesting and mentioned in that NYT article that Biden pardoned a guy involved in a multi-billion dollar ponzi after serving 10 years (with 10 to go). Found an article from 2008 showing that the Bidens were linked with the firm. Not as direct of a quid pro quo but more the standard back scratching … https://www.reuters.com/article/business/stanford-reportedly-had-links-to-fund-run-by-bidens-idUSTRE51N0VC/ https://www.reuters.com/article/business/stanford-reportedly...
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- mikeyouse 1y agoCommuting the remaining 4 years of a 17 year sentence (based on an 85% federal minimum) and leaving the financial penalties intact for someone who apparently had jointly marketed a hedge fund 20 years prior with a family member isn’t remotely the same as preemptively pardoning someone to save them $200M in fines and all prison time after they gave your campaign $2M.
- xeromal 1y agoI've seen these driving around Los Angeles and I'm always surprised. They actually kind of made it. lol
- DevX101 1y agoFor anyone here planning on doing corporate fraud, just make sure you leave a $1-2MM line item for regulatory assistance.
- qingcharles 1y agoBy "regulatory assistance" I assume you mean "campaign donations"?
- xenocratus 1y agoBy "campaign donations" I assume you mean "bribes and kickbacks"?
- paulpauper 1y agothis clearly did not work for SBF
- vkou 1y agoHis mistake was giving more to the Dems, it's why he's landed a 25-year prison sentence under a Dem administration. Remember when half this forum was convinced that both parties are equally corrupt, based on their feeling that he will certainly walk? (That half of it is still convinced they are equally corrupt, but since their guy won and the ends justify the means, they no longer feel the need to articulate reasons for why they would feel that way.)
- braebo 1y agoBut Hunter Biden’s laptop!
- rtkwe 1y agoNo we don't even have to be that subtle any more just call it a gratuity and the supreme courts says it's AOK to give obvious bribes so long as no one provably said "I'll give you $X dollars for Y action". It's painful how blatantly the highest court in the land has been captured by the same people giving these bribes.
- hypeatei 1y agoHow long until this gets flagged into oblivion and conveniently forgotten? Posts that shine our Dear Leader in a negative light are unacceptable here.
- decremental 1y ago[dead]
- awilson5454 1y agoI’m sensing a shift. His base loves being on the outside. Now he has a trifecta and three and a half more years of power. It can’t be any more inside than that. Hopefully his influence starts to severely decline after each unforgivable action, like pardoning fraudsters who have close relations to his administration
- 9dev 1y agoHave you read the Katie Johnson court documents? I don’t think it really gets anymore unforgivable than that, yet here we are.
- tim333 1y agoI don't think it's about disrespecting the Dear Leader so much as a general policy that this is for tech and startups rather than politics.
- hypeatei 1y agoSure, but that's applied unfairly. For example: the Charlie Kirk killing was front page for a substantial amount of time but other topics related to free speech or corruption are flagged and demoted quickly.
- mullingitover 1y agoThe US is really in the worst of both worlds: it's a petrostate, the world's leading fossil fuel producer. With that comes all the tendencies for corrupt authoritarianism and democratic backsliding. However, we don't get the customary low direct taxes. In fact, the taxes are going up on the populace, significantly, (via tariffs) almost in lockstep with the increasingly brazen corruption.
- IncreasePosts 1y agoI think, to be a petrostate, you need to derive a huge part of your economy from pumping valuable stuff out of the ground. Fossil fuels in the US are like ... 6% of the US economy? Not nothing in absolute terms - if there was a "United States of Fossil Fuels", it would be the 12th biggest nation by GDP in the world. But still, America derives a vast majority of its economy from non-fossil fuels
- mullingitover 1y agoThat might be the case, but as far as the political party with a complete, iron-clad grip on the neck of the government is concerned, every other industry is an afterthought. For example, solar and wind are essential parts of an energy portfolio for domestic industry. These are being taken out back and kneecapped with billy clubs to prop up oil/gas/coal. If the country isn't a petrostate it's certainly cosplaying one to a psychotic degree.
- hedora 1y agoImagine if that 6% of the GDP fed back into social services, education, and other government programs that benefit people. About 17% of the GDP is paid to the federal government in taxes. Nationalizing oil production is equivalent to lowering the effective federal tax rate by 35%.
- mothballed 1y agoNationalizing oil has been tried quite a few places with wildly variable results. In the worst case, you get Venezuela, in the best you get something like UAE where the citizens basically only have jobs if they get bored or want to play police to lord over the foreigners.
- theturtle 1y ago[flagged]
- jeffbee 1y agoIt's not some kind of mystery. Utah was founded by grifters and is still massively overpopulated with con men.
- Workaccount2 1y agoThe most important thing to note is that Trevor Milton, who plainly defrauded investors (rolling a model truck down an incline and calling it self powered), hired Bradley Bondi as his attorney. Bradley Bondi is Pam Bondi's (yes the attorney general) brother.
- myko 1y agoPam Bondi also famously took a bribe to allow trump off the hook before his 2016 run. Everything around trump is insanely corrupted by him. She was of course "cleared" of any wrongdoing in the situation, but it was extremely transparent: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/florida-ag-pam-bondi-is-cleared-in-complaint-involving-25k-donation-from-trump/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/florida-ag-pam-bondi-is-cleared...
- mullingitover 1y agoHow to know all you need to know about the level of corruption the US is suffering: compare the dearth of news articles regarding the president's net worth increase of $3 billion dollars since taking office with the plethora of news articles covering his wife's wardrobe choices.
- xnx 1y ago> compare the dearth of news articles regarding the president's net worth increase of $3 billion dollars since taking office Outrage fatigue. The actions are so constant and outrageous that it's hard to keep up. There's an item every single week that would've gotten a president impeached 20 years ago.
- ahmeneeroe-v2 1y ago[flagged]
- xnx 1y agoNo coordinated collusion, but very much yes to Russian interference with intent to benefit Trump.
- seltzered_ 1y agoRelated https://electrek.co/2025/03/28/trevor-milton-claims-hes-been-pardoned-but-really-its-just-an-ad-for-a-documentary/ https://electrek.co/2025/03/28/trevor-milton-claims-hes-been... "It has also been reported that Trevor Milton gave $920,000 to Mr. Trump’s political campaign (or $1.8 million combined with his wife) and was represented in this case by Pam Bondi’s brother."
- Ylpertnodi 1y agoCool and normal.
- yalogin 1y agoBeautiful pay to play at work here. The tech leaders saw this way ahead of time and so aligned themselves with the administration and kissed the ring. They can get away with anything they want. At the very least, they know they will be able to get all regulations off their backs and get favorable regulations as well if they pay their way through.
- ncr100 1y agoIs it legal to teach these kinds (in my personal opinion) of skills in Business School: either extortion (administration threatens / complains, companies pay, administration stops complaining), or the seeming corruption illustrated (again IMO) here? - Extortion example: Trump in a White House Lawn gaggle interview this week complained at / threatened Australia's ABC reporter and then Australia itself with additional tarriffs, after the reporter asked about loss of freedom of speech relating to FCC complaining & threatening "big stick or little stick, you decide" to ABC/Disney who needed FCC's near-future approval for a pending business-merger, which ABC/Disney then terminated a thorn in the side of the President .. comedian Jimmy Kimmel. It's pretty clear, in my personal opinion, that this was extortion Again, these are my personal opinions.
- namuol 1y ago> Is it legal to teach [corruption] Essentially what corporate law is all about. Huge drain on innovation and an accelerant for corruption. We’ve grown so used to it now that we don’t even see it. Agree to terms, move on. Hear about some class-action lawsuit relevant to you, but never get anything from it. Nowadays we don’t even have a right to class-action in most agreements we sign with corporations. The same vultures in corporate law are making their way into public law. It’s like mixing bleach and ammonia.
- ncr100 1y agoFascinating - thank you also for the helpful (to me) analogy.
- sschueller 1y agoNext they will let Elizabeth Holmes go and I doubt Elon will ever see the walls of a prison for the crimes he has committed. At least while this fascist government is in charge and Elon doesn't piss off trump in some way.
- kristjansson 1y ago> Holmes they're trying. https://theinventors.com https://theinventors.com / https://theranoslabs.com https://theranoslabs.com are up on billboards around LA with 'Elizabeth Holmes Innocent' marketing.
- atombender 1y agoI don't know about "they". The billboards and the attempt to resurrect Theranos seems like a bizarro self-promotion stunt by a single guy named Ryan El-Hosseiny, who's been photoshopping himself into photos of Elizabeth Holmes, claiming the title of "CEO and Inventor", and insisting that he's known as "the Steve Jobs of medical labs" despite having no history in the medical industry.
- kristjansson 1y agoyeah 'they' was a bit of a generalization. just pointing out that there's already weird stuff afoot with Holmes.
- terminalshort 1y agoWhat crimes would Elon ever see prison time for? And by crimes here I mean actual felony violations of criminal law that normally result in prison, not "crimes" that HN commenters typically accuse people of that are actually torts or sometimes just things they consider immoral.
- mandeepj 1y agoFor starters, he manipulated Tesla stock many times and defrauded customers on the pretext of selling fully Self-driving cars. Also, how many deaths have been caused by that? This is a big one, but was settled https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/18/business/tesla-black-worker-harassment-settlement-intl#openweb-convo https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/18/business/tesla-black-worker-h...
- paulpauper 1y agoCrime does pay , but only if you know the right people. Just having clout does not always work if you're seen as damaged goods or made an example of, like in the case of SBF.
- Hilift 1y agoWhy would this be of importance given Trump already pardoned numerous violent felons and other cronies? Was it the e-vehicle association? Was it due to retail had not realized there are two systems of laws, one for retail and another for important people?
- Zufriedenheit 1y agoWow. I did follow the case closely at the time. Trevor Milton is such an obvious fraudster. I could't understand how anybody believed him. Just knowing a tiny bit about technology is enough to tell that he was just talking complete nonsense in the videos that i saw. Now fraudsters are pardoning each other. The level of corruption is really unbelievable.
- rvz 1y agoIf you knew this company was a fraud / grift, at least take a bet on shorting it all the way down like I did [0]. Plenty of companies out there that are just plain frauds like Nikola waiting to be discovered. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27996773 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27996773
- vjvjvjvjghv 1y agoYou need some very deep pockets though to last long enough. I remember it took years from reading that Nikola is questionable to it going down. Same for Theranos. And Tesla is not a fraud but probably extremely overvalued. But it keeps going up.
- rhetocj23 1y agoWhilst Elon isn't committing outright fraud, he toes close to the line with his promissory sounding announcements and so on. In any case, the fact we're even talking about this kind of behaviour speaks volumes.
- panick21_ 1y agoBe a bad person and a scumbag, Trump will pardon you. And all the religious nutjobs will still vote for trump because all their moral crusades are complete lies and nonsense. Pure hypocrisy. I followed Nikola from the beginning and it was patently obvious that the company was a scam. And they managed to get the company to the stock market and valued at many billions. Totally insane. The way they did it was basically to run a huge amount of Facebook ads, but they were selling the stock, not the product. And once the stock goes up, everybody just gets in a mode 'surely if it goes up it will continue to go up'. They played on all the pent up 'hydrogen' is the real future bullshit that people have been talking about for decades. He was also pretty good at reading the social media and always pivoting the the new thing. The ended up raising such an absurd amount of money they legit had to start building a real company (try to).
- ModernMech 1y agoI feel the worst for Nikola Tesla in all of this, having his good name ruined by two fraudulent companies.
- givemeethekeys 1y agoAll the marketing for Nikola Trucks' stock was aimed at people with no background in tech or science. It was brilliantly diabolical. Fuck Trevor Milton.
- abeppu 1y ago> However, last month, he argued that the bankrupcy plan does not fully reflect the presidential pardon he received. > The filing last month noted that “President Trump expressly decided here that Milton is factually innocent, the pardon did, contrary to the debtors’ assertions, wipe the slate clean.” Ok so it's maybe not the very most important of the things that people have claimed the president has the power to do, but it sounds like this guy is saying not only does the pardon mean he's "innocent" but that he doesn't _owe money to people_? B/c the presidential pardon power is also an ability to declare what debts everyone does and doesn't have?
- tempodox 1y agoThat’s what it means to be a totalitarian leader.
- yunohn 1y ago> “I don’t know him, but I was… they say it was very unfair. And they say the thing that he did wrong was he was one of the first people that supported a gentleman named Donald Trump for president,” the President said then.
- tw04 1y agoSomeone should tell Trevor that a pardon doesn’t mean you weren’t guilty. He apparently missed that detail.
- none2585 1y agoFor all practical purposes it does
- ModernMech 1y agoPotential investors might not see it that way.
- cainxinth 1y agoWhen the person enforcing the rules is bribable, all criminals need to do is make sure they steal enough to pay themselves and the bribe.