Nikola Corp. founder Trevor Milton wasn’t truthful when he claimed his firm was accountable for many of the parts in a deliberate pickup truck General Motors was to construct for the electrical automobile maker, a GM engineer testified.
“There were no components coming from Nikola,” Scott Damman, a senior supervisor at GM engaged on software program, instructed the jury in Milton’s felony fraud trial Thursday. “They owned the creative design, what the vehicle looked like and felt like, but all of the parts were to come from General Motors.”
Milton is accused of deceptive buyers by exaggerating the corporate’s progress towards introducing autos on the market and of mendacity about Nikola’s know-how and partnerships. The protection argues he was simply following the company advertising plan and by no means stated something he didn’t consider to be true.
The testimony from Damman, whom GM despatched to work with Nikola on the time, got here in response to questioning a couple of video interview Milton gave in 2020.
‘Probably 70% Nikola’
“It’s probably 70% Nikola, 30% GM, when it comes to the parts that are really important to us,” Milton stated within the interview that September, the identical month GM introduced it might construct and supply know-how for Nikola’s Badger pickup in return for funds and an 11 p.c fairness stake.
The relationship between Nikola and GM was to be temporary. A brief-seller’s report adopted simply days after the partnership was introduced that month, accusing Milton and Nikola of deception. By November, GM had scaled again its dedication and dropped its plans for the stake. The Badger was scrapped.
Nikola took $5,000 down funds for Badger reservations in June 2020, when it had no prototype or plan to fabricate the pickup. Public dialogue of the truck bolstered Nikola’s inventory worth, with guarantees a prototype could be revealed at an occasion later that yr. That unveiling, too, was canceled.
Investor takes stand
After Damman stepped down from the witness stand, Joseph Ryan, a person investor, instructed the jurors he had misplaced about $160,000 on Nikola inventory.
Ryan stated he purchased shares primarily based on public statements by Milton that the corporate had succeeded in slashing the price of hydrogen gas from $16 a kilogram to lower than $4. He instructed the panel it might have mattered to him if he had identified Nikola was really shopping for hydrogen at $14 a kilogram slightly than producing it.
Ryan stated he additionally invested primarily based on Milton’s claims that Nikola was shifting towards industrial manufacturing of the Badger, and that he was misled by a video that appeared to indicate a Nikola truck prototype touring beneath its personal energy when in truth it was rolling downhill because of gravity.
On cross-examination, Ryan agreed that Securities and Exchange Commission filings are a extra dependable supply of firm info than press interviews, as Milton lawyer Marc Mukasey steered that day buying and selling is dangerous.
Source: www.autonews.com