Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
Stephen Girsky, the CEO of the EV truck maker Nikola is reportedly leaving as the company plans to file for bankruptcy. The company’s shares hit a new record low at $1.05 earlier this Thursday.
Elecktrek‘s editor-in-chief Fred Lambert wrote on X this Thursday that “the bankruptcy filing is already in the hands of lawyers.” Citing a source, Lambert added that the chief executive “is out.”
“A source (a new source can’t confirm but has some credibility) says Nikola CEO Stephen Girsky is out, and the bankruptcy filing is already in the hands of lawyers,” he wrote. “More employees are being let go.”
Three months ago, Nikola announced a new round of layoffs, less than one and a half years after cutting 23% of its workforce in Arizona. The layoffs affected “about 135 employees, roughly 15 percent of its workforce”.
Last October, the company’s chief financial officer Tom Okray stated that the company had a cash runway of “five to six months,” with a monthly burn rate of $30 million to $40 million.
By then, Okray said that the company was “working right now to try to raise the necessary capital to give us the runway to go much further into 2025.” Nikola ended the third quarter of 2024 with approximately $198 million in unrestricted cash.
Lambert claimed the CEO did not reply after being contacted by him. “I reached out to Girsky, but he didn’t respond,” he wrote before noting that “the company has been radio silent for weeks now.”
Contacted by EV, the company did not immediately respond.
As reported earlier this Thursday, Nikola has still not reported its production and sales figures from the last quarter. The truck maker’s figures have historically been disclosed within the first four days of each quarter, as seen on January 4, April 4, July 2, and October 2 of 2024.
It is behind on filing its production/delivery numbers. A drove flyover of the factory last week showed still over a hundred trucks sitting in the dust without batteries.
As of the time of writing, Nikola shares are trading 7% lower at $1.08. Earlier this Thursday, the stock hit a new record low at $1.05.
Since January 6, Nikola’s stock has plunged nearly 44%, trading precariously close to the Nasdaq’s $1.00 threshold, which is necessary to avoid delisting.
The company sold 88 hydrogen fuel cell electric trucks in the third quarter of 2024, up 22 percent from the 72 units registered between April and June. For the first three quarters of the year, Nikola sold 200 hydrogen fuel cell trucks, and 235 total since the truck went on sale in late 2023.
The company’s head of global sales Ryan Clayton has recently said that Nikola is looking forward to a “really good” year producing and delivering both hydrogen-powered and battery electric trucks.
In mid-November, the company announced a recall of 72 of its 2022-2023 battery electric (BEV) trucks due to a defect in the instrument cluster display. The trucks had been recently re-delivered to the customers following the biggest recall which forced Nikola to fix all units delivered until then.
Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
