Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
In September 2020, General Motors (GM) announced it would acquire an 11% stake in Phoenix-based electric vehicle startup Nikola in exchange for in-kind services and the right to nominate one board member. The announcement of the $2 billion investment caused Nikola’s stock price to soar 53%.
However, two days later, the now-extinct short-seller Hindenburg Research published a report alleging fraud at Nikola and accusing its founder, Trevor Milton, of misrepresenting the company’s technology and capabilities. Milton stepped down as executive chairman on September 21, 2020.
By November 2020, GM announced it was abandoning plans to take an equity stake in Nikola. Both companies also announced they were scrapping plans to jointly build the consumer pickup truck named Badger. Nikola’s shares plunged 27% on the news, closing at around $20.40.
Trevor Milton, who had remained largely silent over the last months, returned to social media in the first days of 2025.
The executive has since posted multiple videos defending himself against the allegations from Hindenburg’s report but also from shareholders who saw Nikola’s shares plunge.
From mid-2020 until today, the stock price has been slashed from over $2,000 to just $1.34, when considering the multiple reverse stock splits executed over the last few years.
In his latest video, posted on Saturday on Instagram and X, Milton contested the 2020 fraud allegations. Responding to a comment on Instagram asking why GM withdrew from its deal with Nikola, Milton wrote, “Big publicly traded companies are sensitive to public relations.”
In July last year, the former CEO had recently discreetly withdrawn his $1 billion lawsuit against several executives of the Arizona-based company removing it from his website.
Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
