Nikola Filmed Its Prototype Truck Rolling Down a Hill in Utah and Said It Had Only Ever Called the Video 'In Motion.' After His Pardon, the Founder Asked the Bankrupt Company for $69.8 Million Toward His Legal Bills.
On or about 1 December 2016, Nikola Corporation unveiled its first semi-truck, the Nikola One, at a large event that was filmed and broadcast online. The company's founder, Trevor Milton, told the audience that the prototype "fully functions and works, which is really incredible." He also told them what it was not. "You're going to see that this is a real truck," he said. "This is not a pusher." Asked by an interviewer at the same event, he explained that a pusher was one of those vehicles "that they unveil [that] are just vehicles that don't actually function."
According to federal prosecutors, the Nikola One "was never completed and never functioned." It was "wholly missing significant parts, including gears and motors," and the control system, the part that tells a vehicle what the driver wants, was missing or incomplete. The side of the truck was stencilled with "H2" and "Zero Emission Hydrogen Electric." According to a 2020 report by the short seller Hindenburg Research, it contained no hydrogen technology at all. The turbine fitted to it had been designed for natural gas.
The Cable
Hindenburg obtained behind-the-scenes photographs of the build. In late August 2016, about three months before the show, the "truck" consisted largely of frame rails with wheels attached. The e-axles, the turbine, the natural gas fueling system and the body had not yet arrived. By the night of the reveal there was a cab, and inside it screens loaded with mockups of the infotainment pages. According to a source who worked on the project, "a cable was snaked up from under the stage through the floor of the cab to power the cabin screens." The screens were, in the report's words, "the only part of it that was turned on."
Milton put the screens at the centre of the demonstration. They showed that the truck was real, in the sense that a television is real.
The Hill
In or about January 2018, Nikola published a video, which Milton also posted on his own Twitter account, in which the Nikola One appeared to drive under its own power along a road with no visible incline. The footage was shot on a remote stretch of the Mormon Trail south of Grantsville, Utah, which Hindenburg describes as a 2-mile, perfectly straight section with a consistent 3 percent grade. The camera angles hid the slope. In some shots the road looked uphill.
The Justice Department later set out how the clips were made. The Nikola One "was towed to the top of a hill, at which point the 'driver' released the brakes, and the truck rolled down the hill until being brought to a stop in front of the stop sign." Hindenburg sent an investigator to the same hill with an SUV in neutral. It reached 56 mph and rolled for about 2.1 miles. Trade publications at the time described Nikola's footage as road testing.
The Rebuttal
Nikola had gone public in 2020 by merging with a special purpose acquisition company. On 8 September 2020, General Motors announced that it would take an 11 percent stake in Nikola, worth $2 billion, and build Nikola's Badger pickup. Two days later, Hindenburg published its report under the title "Nikola: How to Parlay An Ocean of Lies Into a Partnership With the Largest Auto OEM in America." It called the company "an intricate fraud" and its market value "a $20 billion cloud of smoke."
Nikola's response, on 14 September, did not deny the hill. The company said it had "never stated its truck was driving under its own propulsion in the video, although the truck was designed to do just that." The video, it explained, had been made by a third party for a commercial and described on Nikola's social media as "In Motion." It had never been described as "under its own propulsion" or "powertrain driven." The truck had been in motion. Gravity had seen to that.
Milton stepped down as executive chairman within two weeks. On 30 November, GM dropped the equity stake and the pickup in favour of a nonbinding memorandum of understanding to supply fuel cells. The Badger was cancelled. Nikola had collected $6.9 million in refundable deposits for it. The shares fell nearly 25 percent that day.
The Verdict
In December 2021 Nikola agreed to pay the Securities and Exchange Commission $125 million to settle charges that it had misled investors. According to the SEC's order, Milton had begun a public relations campaign to inflate the stock price "before Nikola had produced a single commercial product." The company neither admitted nor denied the findings. SEC Enforcement Director Gurbir Grewal said the misconduct "merits the strong remedies today's settlement provides."
In October 2022 a jury in Manhattan convicted Milton of securities fraud and wire fraud. Prosecutors had charged that he made false claims about "nearly all aspects of Nikola's business," including the Nikola One, the Badger, hydrogen production and truck orders. Part of the wire fraud was the purchase of a Utah ranch, which he partly paid for with Nikola stock options after misrepresenting the business to the seller. On 18 December 2023 Judge Edgardo Ramos sentenced him to four years in prison and three years of supervised release. He was ordered to forfeit a property in Utah and pay a $1 million fine. U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said the sentence was a warning that "'fake it till you make it' is not an excuse for fraud." Milton remained free pending appeal.
The Claim
Nikola filed for Chapter 11 protection in Delaware on 19 February 2025. It had about $47 million in cash. In late March, President Donald Trump pardoned Milton. The pardon came two weeks after prosecutors had asked Judge Ramos to order restitution of $680 million to Nikola shareholders and $15.2 million to the victim of the wire fraud. Because of the pardon, the court could no longer order restitution of any kind. Milton announced the news in an Instagram video, apparently filmed while driving. "Probably the best day I've had in five years," he said. Trump told reporters, "I think he was exonerated." Milton had given $920,000 to the Trump 47 Committee in October 2024.
The pardon covered the criminal case. It did not cover arbitration. Nikola had pursued Milton for breach of fiduciary duty, and arbitrators held him responsible for about 97 percent of the losses his statements caused, including the SEC penalty and $46 million in legal fees and expenses, roughly $167 million in all. Milton, for his part, had filed a $69.8 million claim against the bankrupt company, a sum he said had gone on legal bills. He argued that the pardon wiped away the underlying misconduct. In September 2025 the bankruptcy court subordinated the claim anyway, citing fraud and breaches of fiduciary duty, and rejected the argument that a pardon erases judicial or arbitral findings. Milton asked to testify about his innocence. The judge refused, on the ground that it was irrelevant. Before the hearing, Milton had also bid unsuccessfully at auction for his former company's assets, including its unsold trucks.
Nikola's 2020 rebuttal was, on its own terms, accurate. Nobody had said the truck was driving under its own propulsion, only that it was in motion. Five years later the company was being liquidated, its founder had been pardoned, and he was in a Delaware courtroom asking it to pay $69.8 million towards the cost of his defence.
Filed from public reporting:
- Hindenburg Research — "Nikola: How to Parlay An Ocean of Lies Into a Partnership With the Largest Auto OEM in America"
- U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of New York — "Trevor Milton Sentenced To Four Years In Prison For Securities Fraud Scheme"
- TechCrunch — "Nikola disputes fraud claims in carefully worded rebuttal"
- TechCrunch — "Nikola shares drop as GM pulls plug on investment deal"
- U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission — "Nikola Corporation to Pay $125 Million to Resolve Fraud Charges"
- NY1 / Associated Press — "Troubled electric vehicle maker Nikola files for bankruptcy protection"
- NBC New York / CNBC — "Nikola founder Trevor Milton says Trump pardoned him in securities fraud case"
- Bloomberg Law — "Nikola Founder Loses 9th Cir. Appeal to Vacate Arbitration Award"
- CCJ — "Nikola reaches SEC settlement over $82M in fines following liquidation hearing"
