The Founder of the EV Company Nikola Is Indicted for Fraud

The indictment claims Milton made it seem Nikola was much further along than it actually was in terms of having fully functional EVs. It asserts he had a hand in creating a video that made it seem a Nikola One prototype was able to move by itself when it was actually rolling down a slope.

Milton falsely claimed the company had “billions and billions and billions and billions” of dollars worth of preorder reservations and that the company was producing its own hydrogen at four times less than market rates, according to the indictment. He’s also accused of falsely claiming that Nikola had developed “game-changing” battery technology, that it was developing and making several key components for its EVs in-house and that “the total cost of ownership of Nikola’s trucks was 20-30 percent below that of diesel vehicles.”