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Trevor Milton, the founder of hydrogen-powered truckmaker Nikola, was sentenced to four years in prison on Monday for defrauding investors about the readiness of his start-up’s technologies in order to boost its share price.
The 41-year-old was found guilty on three counts last year, each of which carried a maximum sentence of between 20 and 25 years.
Milton’s lawyers had previously appealed to the court for leniency, arguing earlier this month that the former chief executive “never did anything to hide what he was doing or saying”, created no “phoney” documents and did not “lie to his accountants, auditors or lawyers” about the company. Prosecutors had sought an 11-year sentence.
His sentencing caps a precipitous fall for Nikola, which briefly boasted a higher market valuation than Ford before short seller Hindenburg Research called the company “an intricate fraud”, alleging it had exaggerated its technology and faked product launches.
That report, which came just two days after General Motors announced a $2bn deal with the start-up in 2020, also claimed that it faked a product video in 2018 by rolling its Nikola One truck along a downhill stretch of highway, to disguise the fact that the vehicle had no working engine.
Milton’s lawyers had described him during trial as a gifted entrepreneur and claimed he had been made a scapegoat by other Nikola executives who sought to blame him for the company’s problems.
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