Loading summary
Transcript69 lines
- [00:00]
Zach Goldbaum
Wondry subscribers can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad free right now. Join Wondry in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts.
- [00:24]
Trevor Milton
Everything kind of starts when you're young and you have a lot of paths in life you can take. But this was my path to transform how trucking works.
- [00:32]
Zach Goldbaum
It's December 1, 2016. A promotional video is being projected onto a trio of huge LCD screens in a Salt Lake City warehouse with a packed crowd. They've been invited by a new clean energy truck manufacturer called Nikola.
- [00:49]
Trevor Milton
This is to all the thinkers and the inventors and the entrepreneurs that didn't stop after their first failure. It was the same thing here. We failed, we failed, we failed and then we succeeded.
- [01:04]
Zach Goldbaum
The lights turn off. Royalty free. Rock music blasts and suddenly, a Nikola branded white dune buggy zooms in from the wings. A beefy guy in his mid-30s hops out and jogs on stage. He's wearing the standard tech employee wardrobe, a neatly pressed oxford tucked into blue slacks. This is Nikola's founder and CEO, Trevor Milton.
- [01:26]
Trevor Milton
Wow, a good crowd out here tonight. Thank you.
- [01:29]
Zach Goldbaum
Trevor is a man made for big moments, and this is his biggest yet.
- [01:34]
Trevor Milton
I appreciate it. This is a really incredible time. One of my favorite quotes in the world is the electric light did not come from continuous improvements of candles.
- [01:43]
Zach Goldbaum
What Trevor means is that whatever he has in store, he's not interested in making incremental advances to the trucking industry. He is trying to revolutionize it. Behind him on stage is a giant white satin sheet concealing something that looks suspiciously like a semi truck. It's because it is a semi truck. There's a semi truck under the sheet. But Trevor is a showman. So first there's a show or more of a PowerPoint presentation. For starters, Nikola will be releasing an electric truck and an electric off road vehicle. And each of these will be powered by an energy dense battery pack. Now, I know what you're thinking. This company is sounding a lot like Tesla. But don't get it twisted. They are totally different. For instance, instead of naming his company Tesla after Nikola Tesla, Trevor named his company Nikola after Nikola Tesla. Okay, but here is where they are different. Trevor isn't just interested in electricity. His flagship product, the Nikola one, is actually powered by hydrogen. It's the light bulb in the analogy. All other cars are candles.
- [02:57]
Trevor Milton
Hydrogen's really the only fuel out there. Doesn't create any emissions or byproducts. Incredible. The only byproduct is water. So as this truck goes down the road, the only thing Coming out of this truck will be drips of water.
- [03:07]
Zach Goldbaum
That's because, theoretically, the truck won't produce exhaust or fumes or greenhouse gases, just harmless H2O watering the grass on the side of the highway. And you might be wondering, well, how much will this hydrogen cost? Trevor has more good news.
- [03:23]
Trevor Milton
Imagine pulling up to a station Instead of seeing $253.50, $5 for a. For a gallon of diesel, you see zero as an Nikola customer. And that's what you get when you buy or purchase or lease an Ecola truck. An Ecola one. You get an entire million miles of fuel included into that.
- [03:42]
Zach Goldbaum
The crowd applauds. I mean, how could they not? Who's ever heard of giving customers a million free miles of fuel for buying a truck? All made possible because Nikola doesn't just make the trucks, they make the fueling stations, too.
- [03:55]
Trevor Milton
Well, once again, it wasn't about improving on the candle. It was about totally redesigning what that meant and to become a flashlight.
- [04:04]
Zach Goldbaum
And now it was time to show off Nikola's new flashlight. Trevor walks over to the satin sheet and yanks away the fabric. And there it is, shining under the lights. Trevor's pride and joy, the Nikola one. The truck spins slowly on a platform while heroic music surges. The cab of the truck is branded with clean energy buzzwords, H2. Zero emission, hydrogen electric. When the truck comes to a stop, Trevor is visibly moved.
- [04:36]
Trevor Milton
Oh, that thing is so awesome. Oh, we've been waiting so long to show this the world. You have no idea. This is. It's hard to even contain my emotion about this.
- [04:49]
Zach Goldbaum
Trevor invites the governor of Utah on stage to take a closer look. He smiles approvingly and shakes Trevor's hand. Then it's the audience's turn to come experience the majesty of the Nikola One.
- [05:02]
Trevor Milton
See the truck. Know it's real. Touch it. Feel how sturdy it is. You're gonna see that this is a real truck. This is not a pusher. Thank you so much, everyone. I appreciate it. Thank you.
- [05:13]
Zach Goldbaum
This is not a pusher. Trevor is selling the future. In fact, it's already here and seems very real. From Wondry, I'm Zach Goldbaum, and this is Lawless Planet. Each week we tell a new story about the true crimes fueling the climate crisis and the people fighting to save the planet or destroy it.
- [05:46]
Trevor Milton
I actually appreciate the critics. I'm totally fine with it. I enjoy it because every time I prove them wrong, it drives them absolutely insane. And for me, that's the funnest part of it.
- [06:09]
Zach Goldbaum
Palais tout francais hablas espanol par l'? Italiano? If you've used Babbel, you would Babbel's conversation based techniques teaches you useful words and phrases to get you speaking quickly about the things you actually talk about in the real world. With lessons handcrafted by over 200 language experts and voiced by real native speakers, Babbel is like having a private tutor in your pocket. Start speaking with Babbel today. Get up to 55% off your Babbel subscription right now at babbel.com wandery spelled b a b b e l.com wandery rules and restrictions may apply the urgency of solving the climate crisis makes finding a quick fix really tempting, so it's easy to look at new technologies as our escape hatch. Every innovation from carbon capture to sun deflection can be gilded with world saving potential. And while it's great that there's interest and investment in green tech, you have to wonder if we're expecting too much of a miracle. Not so long ago, Silicon Valley was hailed as the savior of civilization. But somewhere between self driving car pileups, the inshinification of social media and AI generated deepfakes, it became pretty clear that we're putting too much faith in our tech overlords. In this episode, we're going to find out if Nikola CEO Trevor Milton is any different. In the Marvel movie version of Trevor's life, his origin story is that of a plucky bootstrapper brimming with ideas. Think Peter Parker with Tony Stark's brain.
- [07:55]
Trevor Milton
I'm a serial entrepreneur. I've done this many times. I failed multiple times too, so I know what it's like to actually build something from scratch and fail and then build something from scratch and succeed.
- [08:05]
Zach Goldbaum
His hustles started small. One of his firsts was buying bulk candy wholesale and slinging it for retail prices at school. When the principal found out, Trevor was nearly expelled, haters gonna hate Trevor never thought school had much to offer him. Anyway, he dropped out of College after one semester. At 24, Trevor got his first taste of real money. He sold a company he had founded that designed and installed security alarm systems. It wasn't exactly a passion project, but it was profitable. And for his next project, Trevor founded an e commerce site called Upiller. It didn't quite click, but for Trevor it was one of the great near misses of his career.
- [08:48]
Trevor Milton
It was very similar to Amazon. We built the first shopping cart out there. What that shopping cart did is allow you to buy like 20 items from.
- [08:54]
Zach Goldbaum
20 different people Trevor blamed his location.
- [08:58]
Trevor Milton
I was in a small town in Utah called St. George, and that there's no one there that does investments into the Internet. And I was trying to raise money from people that were doing construction. And so it was just a terrible, terrible idea. I should have been in. If I was in Silicon Valley, I would have probably raised 5 or 10 billion dollars if I wanted to.
- [09:18]
Zach Goldbaum
After Upiller dissolved, Trevor started a fuel systems company called D Hybrid that mixed natural gas with diesel. Despite some ups and downs, in 2014, Trevor sold it to an Ohio manufacturing company for $12 million. Flush with cash and flying high, Trevor decided it was time to dream bigger. For inspiration, he turned to his roots.
- [09:41]
Trevor Milton
When I was a kid, I used to drive locomotive trains all the time with my dad. He ran the railroad for the Union Pacific in Vegas. And so the idea was to build a locomotive semi truck. What started as an idea when I was six and technology had advanced enough to allow us to build finally a vehicle the world said couldn't be built, which is a hydrogen electric semi truck that could outperform a diesel in every category.
- [10:02]
Zach Goldbaum
In 2015, Trevor founded the Nikola Corporation. From the beginning, he envisioned it not just as his next company, but his legacy, something he would be remembered by for years to come. More than the vehicles themselves, Nikola's product was its technology. So let's explain what Trevor was selling. First of all, transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the US and commercial trucks and buses account for a quarter of those emissions. Most commercial trucks run on diesel, which is cheaper than gas but burns dirty. As the first hydrogen electric vehicle, the Nikola one promised to change this. Hydrogen doesn't work like gasoline. It doesn't directly power the engine. It powers a fuel cell, which functions like a battery on a conventional electric vehicle. So a hydrogen car is basically like a mini power plant on wheels. Instead of generating exhaust, it emits water, and it doesn't get much cleaner than water.
- [11:06]
Trevor Milton
It's about as emission free as you can get of a fuel. We liquefy that hydrogen, we transport it all across the country, and we store it into gigantic containers and dispense it to trucks.
- [11:17]
Zach Goldbaum
It's worth noting that while hydrogen is zero emissions fuel, it's not zero emissions to produce. It takes a lot of energy to isolate pure hydrogen. And right now, some of that energy still comes from fossil fuels. But Trevor is an optimist. He has faith the science will only improve, and by extension, so will Nikola's vehicles. In a February 2017 interview with Business Insider, Trevor clarifies some of the Nikola One's capabilities. For instance, he says that the Nikola One will be able to drive 800 miles on a single tank of hydrogen. That not only puts it in the same league as diesel powered semi trucks, it's more than twice the distance of most other electric cars like Tesla. Trevor also promises that the refueling time will be much faster than other EVs, which can take hours. A Nikola One will go from empty to full in about 15 minutes. Drivers will be able to fill up at one of the 364 hydrogen stations Nikola is planning to build in the next few years. And these won't be dusty rural gas stations. We're talking $10 million state of the art facilities. The math does seem a little wild, but Trevor isn't worried. Nikola has already netted 4 billion in reservations for the Nikola One. This includes partnerships with major trucking companies and big name brands like Anheuser Busch. When the article is published, the hype around Nikola explodes. Trevor decides what the company needs next is a promotional video for its star product. So a few months later, Trevor drives about 40 miles outside of Salt Lake City with a film crew. The final edit of the footage stays under wraps until January of 2018, when Trevor tweets the video over a brooding cinematic soundtrack. A white Nikola one truck cruises along a rural highway framed by mountains. The camera soars up and around the truck, emphasizing its power and speed. The takeaway is clear. We are beholding a majestic creation. As the camera flies through the air, the music builds and builds into a thunder of drums. Then the camera cuts to the Nikola one parked at a stop sign. It's a curious climax. There's no graceful slowing down or slamming on the brakes trailed by clouds of dust. Just the truck sitting motionless in the middle of nowhere. It's almost as if it's posing. In November of 2019, a year and a half after releasing the commercial, there are no hydrogen power semi trucks rolling off assembly lines. So Trevor pivots to another part of Nikola's business. He announces that Nikola is working on a new, more traditional battery cell for their line of electric vehicles. These aren't hydrogen powered, but they're supposedly a game changer. With four times the energy density of existing lithium ion batteries, Trevor claims they will double the distance an EV can travel on a single charge from 300 miles and to 600. Even better, Trevor says that Nikola's new battery will be lighter, cheaper to manufacture, and more environmentally friendly. He promises that the details will be announced at a Nikola Company event in 2020. Just a few months from now. News coverage of Trevor's announcement is largely positive, though a few skeptics find his claims hard to believe. But Trevor doesn't seem to mind.
- [14:48]
Trevor Milton
I actually appreciate the critics. I'm totally fine with it. I enjoy it because every time I prove him wrong, it drives them absolutely insane, and they have to go back and admit that they were wrong. And for me, that's the funnest part of it.
- [15:02]
Zach Goldbaum
The less fun part is that he dreams bigger and faster than his company can keep up with. For instance, the battery cell Trevor is so excited about. Well, it technically doesn't exist yet. All Trevor's done so far is purchase a small battery company in the UK working on some cool prototypes. One day, our kids will laugh at us.
- [15:24]
Trevor Milton
They'll say, tell us how you used.
- [15:26]
Zach Goldbaum
To sit around airports charging your phones. There's a company that has a vision.
- [15:31]
Trevor Milton
To change all that.
- [15:32]
Zach Goldbaum
This company believes your phone should charge in seconds and then you go or Zap and Go. Unfortunately, Zap and Go's product was as questionable as its name. The company promised its carbon ion technology could not only charge a phone in seconds, it could also charge an electric car in just minutes. But this next gen battery is a long way away from being a reality. It turns out the prototype, it's roughly the size of a coin, so it's not going to power a vehicle, much less for 600 miles, as promised. When Trevor finds out, he sues Zap and Go. But Trevor continues to insist that Nikola's new battery cells will be in production by the end of 2020. In just nine months. Before anyone can ask Trevor the logical question of who will be providing these miraculous batteries, Trevor changes the subject and makes yet another announcement. In three months, Nikola is going public. On June 4, 2020, Trevor's face is looking down from a huge video billboard in Times Square as he rings the opening bell of the NASDAQ exchange.
- [16:44]
Trevor Milton
I want to thank all the governments and all the investors that have made this possible. It's now my opportunity and my pleasure to count down to the ringing of the bell for the Nasdaq with Nikola Motor Company.
- [17:00]
Zach Goldbaum
Nikola is now a publicly traded company. Trevor goes on Fox Business, cnbc, and a bunch of podcasts to discuss the news.
- [17:09]
Trevor Milton
Being publicly traded, people get to see, you know, the good and the bad about your company. So I actually kind of think that's good because up to this point, it's all been kind of speculation across the board from either people that like us or don't like us. And now There's a lot of facts out there.
- [17:22]
Zach Goldbaum
It's an exciting time for him. Going public will raise a lot of revenue for Nikola and put them in the big leagues. More and more companies are reaching out to reserve trucks. Trevor claims 14,000 reservations have been made worth more than $10 billion. But he's already looking past the Nikola one. He's always dreaming of, what's next. And that new dream has a name. The Badger.
- [17:48]
Trevor Milton
Well, we got five months now until everyone gets to see the Badger, the coolest pickup truck in the world.
- [17:52]
Zach Goldbaum
Trevor imagines the Badger as Nikola's next flagship product. A sleek, powerful hydroelectric pickup truck with a range of 600 miles. Just days after Nikola goes public, Trevor announces that pre orders for the Badger will open at the end of the month. And reservations are just $5,000, which sounds like a steal. The only catch is there's no prototype for the customers to inspect. In fact, there's really no information about the truck at all.
- [18:20]
Trevor Milton
I can't go into detail about where they're at, what's going on, what parts are being finalized with assembly right now. But over the next four to five months, we're gonna be leaking out all that entire process, bringing everyone in behind the scenes in a way they've never seen it before.
- [18:33]
Zach Goldbaum
Even so, news of the Badgers pre orders boosts Nikola's stock price 104%. It's worth mentioning that there's other stuff happening in the summer of 2020 that also helped Nikola's stock price. Like the pandemic. More people on their phones means more day trading by amateur investors. And one stock they can't help but notice is Nikola. So it goes up 50%, it goes.
- [18:55]
Trevor Milton
Up 100%, and that's up another 10%.
- [18:58]
Zach Goldbaum
So a lot of people have been asking, what's going on with Nikola Motors? Is it the next Tesla? Retail investors want a piece of Nikola. One named Samuel Lowell sees Nikola's stock climbing and gets inspired. He works as a trucker. So Nikola's product hits close to home. After watching videos of Trevor on CNBC talking about changing the semi truck industry, Samuel decides to go all in. He buys $20,000 of Nikola's stock in September. That story keeps repeating. An investor named Terry Allison becomes so excited by Nikola that he creates a Facebook group for the company, almost like a pop star's fan page. Bit by bit, he buys up over $40,000 in Nikola's stock. A lot of people find Trevor likable. He's unpretentious and passionate and seems genuinely excited about what his company is making investors appreciate how open he is and how ambitious.
- [19:56]
Trevor Milton
Why do we have so many people rallying behind us? It's because we're the only group that's really thought out the entire process vertically integrated from beginning to end, where there's no. There's very little risk in our model now. All the risk we have is in execution. That's really it. The technology's there, the business model's there. The profitability is there, the revenue's there. All this stuff is ready to be.
- [20:16]
Zach Goldbaum
Executed on Trevor's inspired. He tweets ideas into the world night and day. One in particular catches people's attention. Remember how the only byproduct of a hydrogen fuel cell is water?
- [20:29]
Trevor Milton
We take that water, we clean it, we put it into the windshield washer fluid. If your windshield washer fluid is low, all the excess is cleaned and sent to a chiller. So you can have ice cold, clean water as you're driving down the road.
- [20:42]
Zach Goldbaum
That's right. The Badger has a water tap that you can drink from. It's kind of incredible. And other people think so, too. The Badger sells out on pre orders in a week. And again, Nikola's stock price spikes. Within a week of going public, Nikola's market cap soars to $31 billion, surpassing Ford and Chrysler. Even just saying that out loud is dizzying. These other car giants took a century to achieve what Trevor Milton did in five years. In the summer of 2020, the kid who used to hustle candy at school has become a billionaire tech titan seemingly overnight, all without putting a single truck on the let's jump back. Two weeks before the Badgers launch. It's June 17, 2020. Trevor is flying high, tweeting 20 times a day, fist bumping everyone he meets. Then his phone rings. As soon as he answers, he realizes the caller isn't calling to congratulate him or invite him onto another podcast to brag about the miracles of hydrogen. The caller is a reporter from Bloomberg. The reporter tells Trevor that he's working on an article about Nikola, specifically about allegations regarding their deceptive business practices. The journalist details some discrepancies from Nikola's 2016 event in Salt Lake City. The one with the bargain basement Avengers soundtrack. Remember, at the unveiling, Trevor claimed that the Nikola one onstage was not a pusher, meaning a vehicle that can't drive. And so it has to be pushed. Well, the reporter has heard otherwise. People hired to push the truck had indeed pushed the truck. Trevor is livid. He takes to Twitter and fires Off a series of hostile tweets and continues to defend himself on tv.
- [22:55]
Trevor Milton
It was a total hit job. It was really sad. I mean, the answer was is every part on that truck was functionable. We just didn't feel safe driving it at that time. That was our first truck, what, four or five years ago. It was all operable, but it wasn't really that safe. Like it could have killed someone in the audience. But that's okay. I mean, it comes with the territory when you're, when you're coming out here with this kind of valuation and excitement, everyone always targeting for you.
- [23:17]
Zach Goldbaum
As much as Trevor dislikes the article, he's more concerned with something else. Nikola's stock price. His tirade against the Bloomberg reporter seems to work. Nikola's share price nudges even higher. Sometimes the best defense is a good offense. On September 8, 2020, the Good Times keep rolling for Nikola. General Motors announces they bought an 11% stake in Nikola valued at $2 billion. It's everything Trevor has ever wanted. A commitment like this from one of the giants of the automotive industry legitimizes Nikola on every level. The dream isn't just a dream. It's real.
- [23:59]
Trevor Milton
It's going to be built at their plant, engineered, validated, and tested with their team as well. So we get access to their entire supply chain. The team that has built some of the best programs in the world, the Silverados, the Hummers, I mean, everything, they've got the best of the best. And. And they're going to be building our trucks out of their plant. And that was the idea, is to save Nikola billions of dollars.
- [24:20]
Zach Goldbaum
Investors are impressed that General Motors is supporting a clean energy business. And on the day of the announcement, both companies stocks soar. But for Nikola, it may be the last time. A couple of months earlier, on a late summer afternoon, a New York based investor named Nate Anderson is sitting with a former contractor for Nikola. Nate runs an activist investment firm called Hindenburg Research, ironically named after the hydrogen power airship that famously went up in flames back in the 1930s. Basically, they invest in companies they think could be bogus, draft up reports, and then short sell them before they release their findings. If the company's stock dips, they make bank. And on this particular day, the former contractor is pulling up a video on his laptop. It's Nikola's 2017 commercial, the one where the truck was just kind of posing. This is why the Nikola contractor reached out to Nate. He has insider knowledge about Nikola's commercial that he thinks might be relevant to Hindenburg Research. The contractor presses play on the video and breaks down each moment. The truck that appears to be driving along a scenic Utah highway was not, in fact driving. It was rolling. It had been towed to the top of a hill nearby and put in neutral, then pushed. The cameras were just documenting the effects of gravity. The stretch of road used in the commercial was also no accident. It had been specific, specifically chosen because the surrounding landscape looked flat. But in reality, the road just sloped ever so slightly, downwards. Shout out to Nikola's location scout. Nate Anderson is appalled and intrigued. He spends the next few weeks going over details with the contractor and studying internal company texts and documents. Nate connects with a second whistleblower from Nikola who shares corroborating evidence. There's even more that Nate won't learn until later, namely, that the truck itself was a prop. The doors weren't even doors. They were spare parts from a minivan. One of the few real components in the truck was the turbine, but for some reason, it had never been tested, so the film crew had to remove it before shooting because they were afraid it might catch fire or explode. But Nate puts together what he does know in a report that says Nikola has parlayed a, quote, ocean of lies into a partnership with the largest automaker in America. On the night of September 10, 2022, Nate publishes the piece to Hindenburg's website and waits for the blowback. He doesn't have to wait long.
- [27:15]
Trevor Milton
I never take any bullshit. I come straight at everything I ever have done.
- [27:19]
Zach Goldbaum
That's Trevor in a video posted after the Hindenburg report drops.
- [27:24]
Trevor Milton
Never back down on anything. And whenever someone says something like, oh, your truck is total fake, I instantly ran out to our vehicle, pulled it up, and drove that son of a bitch. I can tell you right now that they are lies. 99% of them are all lies. There's a little bit of truth mixed in there when it comes to, like, disgruntled employees or whatever. No doubt. We got some people that, you know, we had to fire, and they're bad people. They're just bad people, but they're not telling the whole story, so I will. You just got to give me a little bit.
- [27:58]
Zach Goldbaum
Trevor talks a big game, but things are looking grim after the Hindenburg report. The once fawning business press is suddenly skeptical, investors are skittish, and Nikola's stock price drops by a third, wiping out billions of dollars in value. But soon, stock prices won't be the only thing Trevor Milton is worried about. Trevor Milton, the founder of Electric Truck Co. Nikola is voluntarily stepping down as executive chairman and giving up his board seat. This move comes after short seller Hindenburg Research accused Milton of making false statements about Nikola's technology in order to try and grow and secure partnerships with automakers. On September 21, only 11 days after the Hindenburg research report, Trevor announces that he's relinquishing leadership of Nikola. In a series of tweets, he explains that he's stepping down because he wants the focus to be on the company, not on him. To most of the public, it's a shock. Imagine Elon Musk abruptly stepping down from Tesla. But Trevor's September had been bad, even by pandemic standards. On September 14, Nikola issued their official rebuttal to the Hindenburg report. The company admitted that the truck in the commercial was not driving, but they used an interesting logic to deny that they intentionally deceived anyone. Nikola claimed that the commercial never explicitly stated that the truck was operational. Seems a bit weird to make a commercial of a truck driving and then get defensive when people assume that the truck can drive, but sure. Days later, the SEC and the Department of Justice launched formal investigations into Trevor Milton. It's not known exactly when Trevor found out about these investigations, but it's probably not a coincidence that he resigned days later. The same day Trevor resigns, he's hit with two sexual abuse complaints. A woman claims Trevor groped her non consensually in 1999. She was 15 at the time. She's also Trevor's cousin. A second woman claims Trevor sexually abused her when she worked at a security Systems company in 2004. She was also 15 at the time. Trevor doesn't address the accusations directly except to say they're false. Internally, it's possible he's more disturbed by something else taking place. The free fall of Nicholas stock price. Given the context, Trevor's resignation looks less like taking the high road and more like hightailing it out of there. It's said that only the guilty fleet, but the guilty also go rogue and say strange things that make you think, oh, wow, that guy is definitely guilty. The final line of Trevor's resignation statement went like, I will continue to spread love everywhere I go, and hope you do as well, for blessed are the peacemakers. But for someone like Trevor, his next move is an even bigger giveaway that the walls are crumbling. He goes quiet on social media. A year later, in July of 2021, the dust finally settled and Trevor was caked in it. He's sitting in a courtroom in the Southern district of New York next to a Defense attorney. With hourly rates so high, he should probably be on trial. But bleeding money is the least of Trevor's problems. Nine months after stepping down from Nikola, and a year after the company went public, Trevor Milton was arrested and charged with securities and wire fraud. If convicted, he faces decades in prison. Today we announce charges against Trevor Milton, former CEO and executive chair of Nikola Corporation. We charge that Milton engaged in a scheme to enrich himself by making false and misleading statements to retail investors about the development of products and technology at Nikola Corporation. The Fed's indictment is long and detailed. Nate Anderson's Hindenburg report is only the tip of the iceberg. The gist of the case against Trevor is everything about Nikola and all of its products was fake. The only real thing about the company was the money it scammed from deceived customers. Prosecutors have a lot to work with. Trevor's con was multi pronged. Nikola's 2016 event in Salt Lake City was a sham. Not only was the truck a pusher, but investigators found an extension cord inside the steering wheel powering the lights inside the truck. And the displays inside weren't screens. They were just tablets with images of trucks, gauges glued to the dash. Basically a prop car. The Badger pickup truck was another fiasco. A Nikola employee had just drawn up a computer image of a concept car. And then Trevor tweeted it. There was never going to be a water tap in the truck. It was just a fantastical idea. And the Badger never sold out either, which, duh, it didn't even exist. But this is just nitpicking. Trevor's piece de resistance was an even bigger scam. At no point did Nikola ever attempt to build a single hydrogen fueling station, much less 364 of them. As Trevor promised, Nikola created zero batteries and zero hydroelectric fuel cells for a car company once considered of equal market value to Ford. Nikola's final tally of vehicles manufactured was shown to be zero. As a wild final note, the only revenue Nikola declared in 2021 was from solar panels they installed a couple years earlier for just a handful of customers, one of whom was Trevor Milton. Fifteen months later, in October of 2022, Trevor is found guilty of securities and wire fraud. Executives at General Motors testified that at the time of their partnership with Nikola, Trevor's company had performed essentially no manufacturing. Their faith in Nikola was purely speculative. A number of Nikki Nikola employees took the stand, claiming they tried to get Trevor to tone down his boasts about the company's offerings. They told him the science didn't work the way he wanted. It to. But he lumped their concerns in with the haters who Trevor was always proving wrong. Retail investors who had put their faith and savings into Nikola, like Terry Allison and Samuel Lowell, submitted victim impact statements. Allison, who ran the Facebook group, claimed that Trevor harassed him on social media once the stock tanked. Lowell, the truck driver, said Trevor deserved, quote, a long prison sentence to fully appreciate the real harm he caused. Trevor is fined a million dollars, forced to forfeit all of his property, and sentenced to four years in prison. Whether people bought into the Nicholas scam because they wanted to make a quick buck, or they saw hydrogen trucks as an easy fix for our climate woes, the problem was the we'd rather do a trust fall than do our homework. It's nice to think that we found the next great innovator, one who could make us rich and change the world. That's why every blowhard names their company after Tesla. Fortunately, his first and last names have been used, so that only leaves his middle name. Milutinov Pro Tip. Do not buy a Milutinov sedan, no matter who makes it. But that is not where the Trevor Milton story ends.
- [35:53]
Trevor Milton
You won't believe just what happened. Sorry, it's pretty hard for me to talk about, but probably the best day I've had in five years.
- [36:06]
Zach Goldbaum
It's March 27, 2025. Trevor goes live on Instagram while driving, which I don't know if that's illegal, but it's definitely not safe.
- [36:16]
Trevor Milton
I just got a call from the President of the United States on my phone, and he signed my full and unconditional pardon.
- [36:26]
Zach Goldbaum
That's right. Just over two months after he was elected for the second time, Donald Trump pardoned Trevor Milton before he ever saw the inside of a prison cell. I'm sure the nearly $2 million that Trevor and his wife donated to the the Trump campaign had nothing to do with it.
- [36:42]
Trevor Milton
I don't know him, but 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.
- [36:54]
Zach Goldbaum
Trevor suddenly feels untouchable.
- [36:57]
Trevor Milton
The prosecutors can no longer hurt me. They can't destroy my family, they can't rip everything away from me. And I'm now officially 100% pardoned. And I want. I wanted to tell everyone out there, all the people that supported me and fought through all the bullcrap, fought all the lies, fought against all the short sellers and the destruction that they do and everybody else involved, the timing could.
- [37:20]
Zach Goldbaum
Not have been better. Two weeks before President Trump's pardon. Prosecutors had asked the judge to raise Trevor's financial penalty from a million dollars to 600 million. Now Trevor has to pay zero. Kind of like the Nikola zero. A month before Trevor was pardoned, Nikola filed for bankruptcy. Now Trevor is off the hook and doesn't owe the world a cent. He's admitted no guilt and he chalked up all of his lies and deceptions to, quote, deeply held optimism. Trevor has promised that whatever he does next in his career, he'll be more careful. There are rumors that Trevor is planning to buy Nikola back. Either way, green energy was a good hustle while it lasted, but now he's free to start over. He can chase an even bigger dream. He might start another business or a podcast.
- [38:18]
Trevor Milton
The greatest comeback story in America is about to happen and I just wanted to tell you guys.
- [38:29]
Zach Goldbaum
Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad free right now by joining Wondry plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey@wondry.com survey on the next episode of Lawless Planet. When a gas pipeline explodes deep below the Baltic Sea at the height of the war in Ukraine, a team of dogged investigators try to find answers. I immediately knew this is some kind of sabotage operation. The big question was, who's behind it? We use a ton of sources to make this show. For today's episode, we leaned on Ed Ludlow's reporting for Bloomberg, Nate Anderson's Hindenburg report on Nikola, and the second season of the Wall Street Journal podcast Bad Bets, hosted by Ben Foldey. This episode of Lawless Planet was hosted and produced by me, Zach Goldbaum. It was written by Brit Brown. Our senior producer and senior story editor is Derek John. Senior producers for wondery are Peter A.R. cooney and Andy Hurricane Herman. Our senior managing producer is Nick Ryan. Our managing producer is Sarah Kenny Corrigan. Our associate producer is Lexi Pirie. Sound design by Kyle Randall. Music by Kenny Kuziak. Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Freeze on Sync. Fact checking by Brian Punyat. Our legal counsel is Deb Druze. Executive producers are Marshall Louie, Aaron o', Flaherty, n' J' Ri Eaton and Jenny Lauer Beckman for Wondery. All right, thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.