Nikola founder Trevor Milton forfeits $166M in stock and gets to keep $3.1B
cnbc.com
cnbc.com
Imagine if as a condition of leaving your FAANG you had to forfeit all of your already vested stock or if you cofounded a company a condition of you leaving was giving up your pre-existing equity.
Good he's leaving but this is almost Theranos level fraud and he's leaving with $3 BILLION.
Unbelievable.
He's leaving with 3 billion in paper money. If it truly is a Theranos level fraud, that'll drop to near zero very quickly.
You should be more pissed that he cashed out something like 30 million in the original IPO at the expense of investors.
1. GM put up no cash but received an 11% stake in Nikola (worth over $1 billion) .
2. Nikola will pay GM $700 million to manufacture up to 50,000 Badger electric pickup trucks (and a future fuel-cell version), production that will help GM achieve economies of scale.
3. GM keeps 80% of the regulatory emissions credits from sales of the Badger and can bid on the sale of the remaining credits — helpful in offsetting GM's continued sales of gasoline-powered trucks and SUVs.
4. GM will also supply the fuel cell systems to Nikola's future big semi-trucks.
Whether GM was part of the fraud from the get go, or happened to stumble upon it and willingly participated in it remains to be determined by SEC and DoJ. Given the current times, I would not be surprised the administration letting GM, an American company, keep its loot.
Nevertheless, this seems like a smart fraudulent roundabout way for a flailing company to secure public market funding, subsidies and business without the burden of its own brand or financials. Will this become a new blueprint in crony capitalism should authorities fail in prosecuting and unwinding this fraud?