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From "Musk in the truck industry" to "Jia Yueting in North America", Nikola's founder, Trevor Milton's life, like his company's stock price, fell from heaven. into hell.

　　Just two years ago, Nikola, founded by Milton, was also known as the "Tesla of the truck world", and the company's valuation once surpassed that of Ford, the second largest car company in the United States. Milton himself is also sought after by investors as the "next Musk", believing that he single-handedly created the great prospects of the hydrogen energy truck industry.

　　Two years later, however, Milton was convicted of two counts of wire fraud and one count of securities fraud, and faces up to 25 years in prison. The share price of Nikola also shrank dozens of times quickly, less than a fraction of the original peak.

　　So, what is the story before and after this huge accident? How did Milton himself tell such a big lie?

　　When the "big flicker" meets the new energy outlet

　　Milton was born in 1982 and is a native American. Unlike Musk, who graduated from the prestigious University of Pennsylvania and holds a double degree in physics and economics, Milton only has a high school degree. After only one semester at Utah Valley University, he dropped out and chose to start a business.

　　Milton's early entrepreneurial projects include security system sales, used car classified advertising network, etc. It can be said that he has almost no foundation in the field of new energy technology. And judging from the evaluations of his early partners and employees, his consistent marketing methods are mainly "flickering": for example, his first company was accused of falsifying financial data; in the second company, his partners He also accused him of relying on deception to get other partners to pay less.

　　In 2014, taking advantage of the new energy vehicles, Milton, 32, founded Nikola.

　　At that time, Musk's Tesla had already occupied half of the new energy vehicle market, and just from the name of the company Nikola, we can see Milton's ambition to "touch porcelain" Tesla: the origin of Tesla's name It is based on the surname of the famous American inventor and engineer Nikola Tesla, and the name of the Nikola company is derived from the Nikola in the name of the inventor.

　　Nikola's slogan is to launch the world's first hydrogen-powered truck and disrupt the prospects of the entire global trucking industry.

　　In 2016, Nikola held a launch event to launch its first hydrogen-powered truck product, the Nikola One. According to Milton's boast, the hydrogen-powered truck takes just 15 minutes on a single charge and can travel more than 1,000 miles on a single charge, with zero emissions and no pollution. At the press conference, Milton also specially invited reporters to get on the car to demonstrate its cool on-board screen.

　　This made many investors excited, and Nikola was also regarded by many as a "Tesla for trucks", and investment funds poured in.

　　The scam is gradually exposed

　　However, what investors never expected was that the Nikola One on the stage of the press conference was actually just a car shell . The lights of the car are lit by Nikola's engineers secretly connecting external wires to the body. Even the outer shell of the car itself was driven out by working overtime a week before the press conference.

　　From the latest indictment released by the US court, we can see in more detail how Nikola deceived the world: all the electrical components on the truck they showed were powered by external power . As a so-called "hydrogen fuel-powered truck", this truck is neither equipped with fuel cells nor hydrogen storage tanks, and all necessary accessories for power vehicles such as air compressors, turbines, and gearboxes are not installed.

　　What's more outrageous is that the so-called cool car screen that Milton demonstrated at the time was actually just a ready-made tablet computer, and it was not integrated into the vehicle system at all, but was only embedded in the car shell.

　　More than a year after the launch, there have been more doubts surrounding Nikola as the car has not progressed to production. So in 2017, Milton made a new move: he released a new video of Nikola one galloping fast.

　　Although the video did not provide more confidence, investors saw that the car was actually ready to go on the road, so their confidence increased again. Milton also struck while the iron was hot, releasing NikolaTWO and NikolaThree one after another, and successfully backdoor listing, with a valuation of as high as $34 billion at one point.

　　Although Nikola did not mass-produce a single car at that time, its market value has surpassed that of Ford, the second largest car company in the United States, and even General Motors of the United States came over and wanted to cooperate with him to build a car.

　　However, just two days after its share price peaked, short seller Hindenburg Analysis released a scathing report on Milton, detailing everything from private calls and emails to text messages and behind-the-scenes photos. Citing all kinds of false evidence of Nikola, exposed Nikola's lies.

　　It wasn't until then that people realized that the Nikola One's on-road video was actually a complete hoax. Nikola just pulled the car up a hill and let it slide down on its own with gravity. Nikola sped up the video by adjusting camera angles and editing to make the car model look like it was speeding.

　　As soon as this report came out, everyone was in an uproar, and the company's stock price also began to plummet. Under a lot of hard evidence, Nikola finally had to admit their big lie, and Milton eventually resigned from Nikola in early 2021, and then faced court charges.

　　The impetuousness and bubbles behind the new energy carnival

　　In the Nikola fraud incident, the most ironic point is that Milton's lie is obviously broken as soon as it is poked, so why does it last for so long?

　　From Milton's release of Nikola One in 2016 to when it was kicked out by short sellers in 2020, for nearly four years, not a single investor went to the scene to verify their car-building status, and not a single investor saw The real body of Nikola One.

　　In the past four years, Milton has been able to blow the company's market value to 34 billion US dollars with a car model and a fake video. Not only did he deceive the US stock market listing, but even industry giants such as UAV were deceived into the pit. inside.

　　Behind this, it not only reflects the "big flicker" Milton's profound flickering skills, but also reflects the impetuousness and bubbles of the new energy vehicle market in the past few years.

　　From 2019 to 2021, Tesla's stock price has experienced a "miracle" of dozens of times of growth. After this, global investors are impatiently trying to find the "next Tesla". In this process, many new energy start-ups have sprung up and listed, not only Nikola, but also Rivian, Lordstown and many other new energy start-ups have been extremely sought after.

　　However, after the previous carnival, there are only chicken feathers left: some of these companies are now facing huge losses and operational difficulties, some are facing fraud charges similar to Nikola, and their stock prices are also away from their peaks a year or two ago. Only a fraction left.

Nikola shares are at a fraction of their peak

　　Nikola will never return to its former glory

　　The U.S. court's allegations of fraud against Milton were only directed at him personally, while Nikola's company executives tried to distance themselves from Milton, emphasizing that they only learned of the scam after they entered the company.

　　What's even more ironic is that Nikola has actually built a car since its founder, who was good at marketing and cheating, left.

　　Currently, the company has begun production and delivery of the electric Nikola Tre semi-truck in North America — 93 of them have been delivered so far, though all were recently recalled due to safety issues with the auto parts.

　　Earlier this week, Nikola also completed the acquisition of electric vehicle battery developer Romeo Power to begin designing its own electric truck batteries.

　　In addition, Nikola paid $125 million to the SEC in compensation for misleading investors with its commodities.

　　But unfortunately, although the company's situation has improved, as a company that once ranked as the second largest car company in the United States, Nikola's stock price is now only $3.06, which is less than a fraction of the previous peak of $93.99. And looking forward to the future, no matter how hard the company works, it may be difficult to regain its former glory.