Nikola founder Trevor Milton sentenced on three fraud charges

Trevor Milton, founder and former executive chairman of Nikola, was found guilty of three counts of fraud for misleading the electric vehicle company's investors about its business and technology.< /p>

In total, he was found guilty of one count of securities fraud and two counts of wire fraud. He was acquitted of a charge of securities fraud. His sentencing is scheduled for January 27. He faces up to 20 years in prison.

Milton was indicted by a federal grand jury last year, with prosecutors citing numerous alleged lies, many of them on Twitter, in podcast interviews and other media appearances. Prosecutors alleged he lied about "nearly every aspect of the business" in an effort to boost the electric vehicle maker's stock.

The SEC began investigating the company in 2020, after Hindenburg Research publicly accused Nikola of staging an "elaborate ruse" to mislead the public about the status of its semi-electric, Nikola One . While the company released a video purporting to show the truck "driving down a high speed road", Hindenburg said the truck was actually "towed up a hill on a remote stretch of road and had it just filmed racing down the hill.” The company ultimately paid $125 million to settle the civil charges with the SEC in 2021.

During the trial, Milton's defense attorney argued that the video was just "special effects" and that "it's certainly not a crime to use special effects." But prosecutors raised several other false allegations from Milton, who was extremely active on Twitter. According to The Time, prosecutors said Milton also lied about having "binding contracts with trucking companies" that were actually cancellable reservations for vehicles. Prosecutors also cited Milton's claims of making "green hydrogen" when the company had not yet produced any.

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