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Nikola Founder Trevor Milton Sentenced To 4 Years For Securities Fraud - Slashdo...

 1 year ago
source link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/23/12/18/211236/nikola-founder-trevor-milton-sentenced-to-4-years-for-securities-fraud?sbsrc=yro
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Nikola Founder Trevor Milton Sentenced To 4 Years For Securities Fraud

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Trevor Milton, the disgraced founder and former CEO of electric truck startup Nikola, was sentenced Monday to four years in prison for securities fraud. The sentence, by Judge Edgardo Ramos in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, caps a multi-year saga that at one point sent Nikola stock soaring 83% only to come crashing down months later over accusations of fraud and canceled contracts. The sentencing hearing comes after four separate delays, during which Milton has remained free under a $100 million bond. In his ruling, Ramos said he would impose a sentence of 48 months on each count, served concurrently, and a fine of $1 million. Milton is expected to appeal the sentence, which Ramos acknowledged. Milton sobbed as he pled with Judge Ramos for leniency in a long and often confusing statement ahead of the sentencing. At one point, Milton said he stepped down from the CEO post at Nikola not because of fraud allegations, but to support his wife. "I stepped down because my wife was suffering live threatening sickness," he said in his statement, which reporter Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press shared on social media post X. She suffered medical malpractice, someone else's plasma. So I stepped down for that -- not because I was a fraud. The truth matters. I chose my wife over money or power." During the sentencing hearing, defense attorneys said that Milton wasn't trying to defraud investors or intending to harm anyone. Instead, they argued he simply wanted to be loved and praised like Elon Musk. Prosecutors pushed back and said he lied repeatedly and targeted retail investors. Federal prosecutors recommended an 11-year sentence, but Milton faced a maximum term of 60 years in prison. The government also sought a $5 million fine, forfeiture of a ranch in Utah and an undetermined amount of restitution to investors. Restitution will be determined after Monday's sentencing hearing. Timeline of events: June, 2016: Nikola Motor Receives Over 7,000 Preorders Worth Over $2.3 Billion For Its Electric Truck December, 2016: Nikola Motor Company Reveals Hydrogen Fuel Cell Truck With Range of 1,200 Miles February, 2020: Nikola Motors Unveils Hybrid Fuel-Cell Concept Truck With 600-Mile Range June, 2020: Nikola Founder Exaggerated the Capability of His Debut Truck September, 2020: Nikola Motors Accused of Massive Fraud, Ocean of Lies September, 2020: Nikola Admits Prototype Was Rolling Downhill In Promo Video September, 2020: Nikola Founder Trevor Milton Steps Down as Chairman in Battle With Short Seller October, 2020: Nikola Stock Falls 14 Percent After CEO Downplays Badger Truck Plans November, 2020: Nikola Stock Plunges As Company Cancels Badger Pickup Truck July, 2021: Nikola Founder Trevor Milton Indicted on Three Counts of Fraud December, 2021: EV Startup Nikola Agrees To $125 Million Settlement September, 2022: Nikola Founder Lied To Investors About Tech, Prosecutor Says in Fraud Trial

Musk repeatedly lied about the capabilities of his cars. The difference is that he was able to string the investors along long enough for the government program that paid for the cars to be built to get going. Once that happened Tesla stock prices shot up and it was no longer any danger of anyone who really mattered losing any money. It's at the point where when Tesla does finally collapse in the face of serious competition from other car manufacturers the big money guys will be able to get out and dump the

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I normally disagree with your posts, but I do agree with your point that this could as easily have been Musk. But even then, I do not like Musk, but I do respect him for what he's achieved.

I honestly feel for the guy. I have been a tech entrepreneur. I still work with many. Few people have what it takes to step into the arena. Even fewer have what it takes to win in it. Many will criticize him for what he did. None of those critics matter, because few understand the pressures, the challenges, the s

  • Steve Wozniak yeah that guy is a tech entrepreneur. Hell I might be willing to make a case for Bill Gates as a tech entrepreneur albeit a sleazy one. But take away the government programs and Elon Musk is just a guy with a few million dollars from a.com scam.

    He absolutely overpromised. It is a verifiable fact that he lied about the range on the early Teslas in order to overcome range anxiety. It's an equally verifiable fact that he lied about the abilities of his self-driving cars and brought in huge a
    • Did Musk ever post a video of "Tesla car, on the move", featuring an unpowered Tesla rolling downhill under gravity power?

      I don't think Musk or Tesla ever did, but Nikola sure did with one of their supposed trucks. They can mince words all they want, but I see fraud. They should have named the product "Nikola Soapbox Derby", instead of "Nikola truck".

      • Technically, "no", but, functionally "yes": A 2016 video that significantly overstated self-driving capabilities was revealed just this year. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/t... [cbsnews.com]

        The video was shared in a 2016 blog post titled "Full Self-Driving Hardware on All Teslas," that is still available. Before the nearly 4-minute video begins, the screen flashes text reading, "The person in the driver's seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself."

        The video then shows a Tesla pulling out of a driveway, stopping at intersections and red lights, traveling on a highway, delivering a person to an office complex and then parallel-parking itself, set to the sound of the Rolling Stones' "Paint it black." The driver's hands hover just below the steering wheel for the duration of the video.

        CEO Elon Musk promoted the demonstration on Twitter, writing, "Tesla drives itself (no human input at all)."...
        The news service cited a deposition from Ashok Elluswamy, the company's director of Autopilot software, that was taken as part of a lawsuit over a driver's 2018 death in a Tesla.

        "The intent of the video was not to accurately portray what was available for customers in 2016. It was to portray what was possible to build into the system," Elluswamy said, according to a transcript of his deposition cited by Reuters.

        Elluswamy said the car was driving a predetermined route in the video and that drivers intervened to take control during trial runs, Reuters reported. He also testified that, during attempts to show the Model X could park itself without a driver, a test car crashed into a fence in Tesla's parking lot, Reuters reported.

      • doesn't make Musk less scammy. If one guy stole $10,000 from me and another stole $100,000 I still want both of 'em in jail.

      • Re:

        The Nikola truck rolling downhill became an icon of the fraud, but it it wasn't even remotely the worst thing that Milton pulled.

    • Re:

      If the only thing he ever did was to do more for electric vehicles than anybody else, he would probably deserve a statue. That's not idol worship, it's just common sense.

      And you can't have it both ways. If he succeeded only through government, then government seemed to need him in order to succeed. Government certainly didn't succeed at electric vehicles or (anytime recently) space without him.

      • Re:

        You're entitled to your opinions, but man, do yourself a favor and chill out. Might do you some good to check out a therapist.

      • Re:

        a statue is idol worship otherwise what's the point of a statue

        • Re:

          Wow, really? All statues? A statue of MLK?

    • Re:

      You're 100% right about Musk. Gwynne Shotwell is everything at SpaceX. Tesla existed before Musk, but they were telling a bad story and you do have to give him credit for moving the entire automotive industry to seriously consider electric cars (whether they're good or not is still up for debate, but it is worth the discussion).

      But the hero worship of Musk is ridiculous. I think the Twitter disaster has shown that Musk is not someone to be admired, rather he is just some bigoted apharteid era Afrikan

    • Re:

      Oh look here. All the talking points of the typical Musk hater.

      It never seems to matter that all those points have been thoroughly and repeatedly debunked for up to a decade now. They never get tired of typing them up again and again. And the "conclusions" (if you can call them that) are no better. It is like listening to MAGA types chewing the fat about someone named Clinton or Obama. The process is the same.

    • Re:

      Well, nothing succeeds quite like success. Milton failed. Musk succeeded. Big time.

  • Re:

    That's like respecting someone for winning the lottery. Elmo was born wealthy, and lucked out with a few investments in the dot-com era. Did you know he wanted to rename PayPal "X" despite everyone around him, supported by market research, saying it was an incredibly stupid idea? He got pushed out because he's incompetent.

    He's burning Twitter to the ground faster than anyone thought possible though a seemingly endless parade of obviously bad decisions. Everything we've learned about his CyberTruck fias

  • Re:

    I'm sorry, but no. What Milton did was worse than Holmes. It wasn't "fake it until you make it", it was "just flat out lie about things that you absolutely know are total bullsh*t it until you can cash out and leave someone else with the bill". Which has been the guy's entire career, ripping off one group of people after the next, but relying on charisma to get people like you to assume that he "really meant well". The frauds he's carried out through his career (which didn't start at Nikola) haven't bee

    • Re:

      Normally I tend to agree with your posts, but this is one I can't quite get behind.

      I'm sorry, but no. What Milton did was worse than Holmes

      Since this article is specifically about Milton's sentence, I disagree with this notion. What Milton was convicted of was defrauding investors by lying about the capabilities and progress of his vehicles. While the allegations against Holmes are similar, her lies endangered people's lives. If her tests had shown any false negatives, the patients could have lost preci


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