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In this episode of American Greed, the promise of green energy gone bad.

Welcome to Nikola in Phoenix, Arizona.

The founder of Nikola Motors, Trevor Milton, is front and center with flashy

promotions that put him in the crosshairs of prosecutors.

And when he unveils his all -electric truck.

Oh, that thing is so awesome.

Milton says it will change the world. His message was, we are the future.

targeting the second largest polluting industry in the world, the trucking

industry.

American greed goes inside what prosecutors allege is a crime that

plain sight.

Tesla's just really just following in our footsteps.

Trevor Milton targets young, naive investors who are looking for the next

energy guru.

Your stock price is moving really fast.

I mean, the idea is that, you know, I don't really, that's why I didn't even

know the number. I don't even really watch the stock price that much. He

like the next Elon Musk at an earlier stage where I could jump in at an early

stage. But does Milton have the goods?

You're going to see that this is a real truck. This is not a pusher. You're

going to see the real badger. It's real.

American greed pulls back the curtain on clean energy technology that the feds

say is full of hot air.

Milton brazenly and repeatedly made false and misleading claims.

about the status of nuclear technology.

We're under $4 right now a kilogram for hydrogen. An order yesterday was over

$30 million to produce over 40 ,000 kilograms of hydrogen.

I mean, I hear hydrogen and I think of, of course, the old Hindenburg, and I get

a little bit scared.

It's a prophetic statement, because later, a lawyer representing

together with a financial research company named after the Hindenburg

will take aim at Milton's high -flying, hydrogen -powered dream.

54 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, this lost highway becomes the perfect

place to stage a key scene in an alleged multi -billion dollar fraud.

With no witnesses, at least no human witnesses, Trevor Milton creates

a film, according to prosecutors, that helps put him on the map as the next

Musk. a billionaire pioneer in electric vehicles and renewable energy.

And you're basically the next Elon Musk. Do you like that?

I like to think about the fact that I'm Trevor.

From the deserts of Utah, an epic about a man, a dream, and people all too

willing to believe a mirage.

The star of the drama, Trevor Milton, grows up in Kanab, Utah, a little

in a box canyon.

Kanab is a super unique place, a western classic, and a lot of films made here,

a lot of movies.

Its red rocks are the perfect backdrop for stars from John Wayne to Ronald

Reagan to Clint Eastwood.

Though Trevor Milton will one day make his name, too, There's little to

future success, according to Tim Clarkson, who grows up next door to

I specifically remember times where, you know, he was kind of down, like people

teasing him or picking on him a little bit.

In a Friday night light kind of town, Milton is a quiet, nerdy tinkerer

on computers, according to Clarkson. Going out for the wrestling team doesn't

help.

Definitely, that was not a strong suit.

In wrestling, obviously, you can win, lose, get pinned, and I remember he got

pinned a lot.

Eventually, the Miltons leave Kanab, and Tim Clarkson doesn't think much about

Trevor again until years later when he learns Milton is a billionaire.

And I thought, wow, that's, it was fascinating because I thought, who would

known?

After just one semester of college, Trevor Milton drops out and moves to St.

George, Utah.

A building boom is in full swing, and the 19 -year -old sees opportunities

selling home alarm systems.

Milton found St. George security and alarms and hustles.

The quiet kid from Kanab is now a high -energy entrepreneur.

He was very charismatic. He was definitely a salesperson.

After a couple of years of building the company, Milton is ready to sell it and

pursue bigger dreams.

Tammy and Glenn Pills agree to buy the company for just under $800 ,000 with

$300 ,000 down.

And we're not crazy rich people, so this was pretty much everything.

The parties agree on a sale price based in part on the alarm company's accounts

receivable, money owed from customers.

But as soon as they're handed the keys, Glenn and Tammy say they have trouble

collecting.

That's because Milton has told some customers to make their checks payable

him, not the company.

So what his bookkeeper has marked as accounts receivable have already been

to Trevor Milton.

And Glenn and Tammy have bought a pile of worthless IOUs.

And as you start seeing more and more of these, you're thinking, these aren't

mistakes.

Trevor kind of became unavailable.

He was very hard to get a hold of.

Milton declined American Greed's request for comment.

Not long after the discovery, the housing bubble bursts, ushering in the

Recession.

Customers cancel their home security systems to save money.

It definitely hit home some months. It was like, how can we afford to pay this

and make our payroll this month? Or how can we pay ourselves?

Ultimately, they have no choice but to declare bankruptcy and walk away from

business.

Crazy stressful, obviously, so we didn't have the money to make the house

payment, so we ended up moving out of that house.

I mean, the home that we purchased in St. George, because we bought this

business, we bought our dream home.

This was the house I wanted my grandkids to come to.

And we...

Had to let it all go.

Trevor Milton, however, is moving on. He starts a company called Upillar.

Upillar .com, is that? It just doesn't make sense.

It's an online marketplace for secondhand stuff.

Milton has bold ambitions. He buys expensive ad time on the nationally

syndicated Glenn Beck Show.

Milton, seen here on the right, touts the connection with Beck on Upiller's

Flickr page.

And when Doritos launches a competition to create a Super Bowl ad, Milton is all

in. He himself appears in the bit. That's him on the left, getting attacked

Sasquatch because he doesn't have Doritos.

He wants a drink, big fella.

Despite his aspirations,

a former web designer for UPillar says it has many technical failures and never

makes money. And that's when Milton makes a big pivot.

Tyler Satterfield runs a company called Epic Motorsports in St. George.

And one of his most enthusiastic customers is Trevor Milton.

He rides dune buggies and dirt bikes.

and hires Satterfield to modify them to go faster.

Hey, this just doesn't quite have enough power. What can we do?

Hey, let's do intake. Let's do a pipe.

Let's throw nitrous at it.

Knowing Satterfield is handy with a wrench, Milton taps him to do research

development on his latest idea, a company he calls D -Hybrid.

which aims to convert trucks to run on both diesel and natural gas, which is

less expensive.

You can bring your fuel costs in half, and that was the idea, was to save

money on their fuel.

Another former employee tells American Greed that dehybrid was a, quote, show.

Satterfield is more nuanced.

He says the young man with a need for speed makes promises to customers that

production team cannot deliver.

I'm like, oh, you know, wait a minute. Those are still in the paint booth. And

by the time that paint dries and we only have a few, it wasn't realistic.

So unrealistic that D -Hybrid is plagued by lawsuits.

Despite ongoing litigation, Milton finds someone willing to give him $16 million

for the company.

Milton has made off like a bandit.

But Glenn and Tammy Pills say they are still recovering from their dealings

him.

To make ends meet, Tammy has taken a job as a cashier at a Walmart in St.

George.

where Milton still lives.

He had come through my line. I was working.

At that point, I still had a lot of anger.

I was still, do you know what you did to me? Do you know what you did to my

family?

Tammy would like to go full Sasquatch.

I probably wanted to punch him, but because I was working, I didn't.

I didn't punch him.

Milton leaves this awkward encounter and the town of St. George $16 million

richer. He moves to Salt Lake City with his biggest dream yet, by far.

A trucking startup that claims to be the next Tesla.

A company that came out of a basement, built the most advanced semi -truck the

world has ever seen.

Up next, Milton raises money from friends.

who go all in. This was every dollar I ever had. But I just saw that, you know,

transportation, energy, and technology all in one, and so I wanted to be a part

of it.

And later, the shocking truth of Milton's demonstration in the desert.

Trevor Milton moves to Salt Lake City, flush with cash from his sale of D

-Hybrid.

No longer a picked -on kid, he's now the big man, or at least plays the role by

taking 30 friends to Hawaii at his expense.

For his birthday, we went 30 of us out to Hawaii.

Jimmy Rex is a friend of Milton who will later have him on his podcast.

It was like the beginning, we had a little bit of a weird start, but then it

like one of the funnest weeks of my entire life.

And that was when I think me and you really, especially me and you, really

connected within Hawaii.

Jimmy, says Trevor, that's him in the pink shorts leaning on the rock, barely

knows half the people on the trip, but clearly has money to spend and wants to

expand his circle of friends.

And so he put us in charge of finding a bunch of cute girls to go with.

And so, yeah, we all ended up going to Hawaii for a week for his birthday.

Once in Maui, they go for a hike.

Halfway through the hike, and I'm like, where's Trevor?

And we'd left him.

From his condo, Jimmy says, Milton sends an angry group text.

So it's like, you know, screw you guys, you just used me for this trip, I'm

going home, I don't even care what you do, enjoy my house, enjoy my trip kind

thing.

Jimmy says he calls Trevor and explains that he too was once abandoned by

friends. So he did call me, and I told him my story, and we really had this

heart -to -heart connection talk.

I said, you got a choice, dude, you can go home and be pissed, and you know

what, you have every right.

Or you can see this as a misunderstanding, come back, enjoy the

some amazing friends going forward.

That's when I would say he and I really became friends.

The trip is salvaged.

And then, a few months later, Jimmy hears about Trevor's latest startup.

He calls it Nikola.

The name is inspired by the inventor Nikola Tesla.

Coincidentally, of course.

What's that they say about great minds?

But unlike Tesla's battery -powered cars, Milton says Nikola will make

fuel cell semi -trucks.

I recognized that it was technology, transportation, and energy all in one.

And I was like, do you have to let me invest? You know, and he said, well, you

know, the minimum would have to be a half a million dollars to even make it

worth my while.

Jimmy is so gung -ho, he ignores the time -honored advice against putting all

your eggs in one basket.

He scrounges for every dollar in his accounts.

and comes up just a little bit shy.

I ended up borrowing the last 70 grand from a buddy to be able to put in the

full 500 grand. This was every dollar I ever had, plus 70 grand of my other

buddy's money.

With seed money from Jimmy, Milton, and four other individuals, Milton toils to

get Nikola off the ground.

In a video he will later post on YouTube, Milton portrays himself a bit

Steve Jobs starting Apple in a garage.

And I'm excited to show you where this all began.

Nikola was founded truly in a basement, a lot like some of the best companies in

the world that have been established.

If you would have been back in 2015 to see this, we had computers through my

entire basement, through my kitchen, and through my living room.

It's a good thing at that time I was not married.

But if prosecutors are right, the best analogy isn't Steve Jobs and Apple, but

Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos. And just like Holmes, Milton even calls this

quiet period stealth mode.

CNBC reporter Phil LeBeau says Milton realizes there's a huge appetite for

-emission trucks.

Because diesels are major emitters of greenhouse gases and other pollutants.

This was a very appealing story right from the get -go. When you look at the

possibilities of semi -fleets cutting their emissions and being more cost

-effective, there's a ton of companies that would look at a truck hydrogen

-powered and say, we want a piece of that.

And then, in December 2016, Milton and Nikola proudly say, Goodbye,

stealth mode.

Hello, world.

It's a huge event. The unveiling of the Nikola One, a truck that Milton says

changes everything.

Oh, that thing is so awesome.

Oh, we've been waiting so long to show this to the world. We have no idea. It's

hard to even contain my emotion about this.

In this video, which will later become central to the case against him, Milton

says the Nikola One is fully functional.

I really want you to look at that truck.

The cab itself, like I said, you'll be able to go inside. We have a little

on the front to keep people from hitting the controls because they do work.

But you will be able to see all the screens actually lit up and working,

is awesome.

And this truck will come to market. I can promise you that. It's my pleasure

actually let you guys enjoy the night, see the truck, know it's real, touch it,

feel how sturdy it is.

You're going to see that this is a real truck. This is not a pusher. A pusher is

the type of vehicle that you would see maybe at an auto show where they push it

onto a stage because it doesn't have a fully functioning engine.

Not a pusher.

It's a clear, simple statement said boldly before a live audience.

and will later come back to haunt him.

You're going to see that this is a real truck. This is not a pusher.

Thank you so much, everyone. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Up next, you're pulling a load.

He looked like the next Elon Musk at an earlier stage where I could jump in at

an early stage.

Boy, if I could have bought Tesla at $5 a share, look how rich I'd be right now.

See what happens when Milton takes his pitch to small investors.

In January 2018,

Trevor Milton logs on to Twitter and shares a video.

The Nikola One in motion on the open road. With the swelling music of an

movie, it's sold as a triumph, a game changer.

They're having all these demonstrations on YouTube and Twitter about how great

their technology is going to be. They keep talking so highly of it.

And then you look at it and say, wow, this company has it.

Danny Jimenez is an Army veteran with a master's degree in public health.

Despite a six -figure income, he says he can't afford a house where he lives in

Hawaii.

Like other millennials, Jimenez blames an economic triple whammy.

The Great Recession, student debt, and to top it all off, the pandemic.

The appreciation of housing keeps skyrocketing. I just can't catch up.

So Jimenez uses online trading platforms to swing for the fences.

Hopefully pick and choose and find the right ones and go all in, as they say,

and then try to fly to the moon. So I'm still hoping to get that one big hit so

I can finally achieve that American dream.

A big hit like Tesla Motors.

Someone who invested $10 ,000 into Tesla when it first went public would now be

a millionaire.

Value X Jeff Ubbin thinks he's found the next Tesla with Nikola Motors.

What's up, guys?

I want to get in on the next Tesla.

I'm just saying, Nikola Motors. Nikola is the leader in both electric and

hydrogen, but different than Tesla. And you can tell by Trevor Milton in his

interview, he'd be saying.

We're Tesla's competitor or we're the next Tesla or whatever. But Nikola is

pioneer in heavy -duty trucking, and Tesla's just really just following in

footsteps. So he wanted the comparison to be made.

And I think that's why people are excited to invest, is because it's like

of getting in early on, or way early on, on Tesla. His message was, we've got

the technology, it will work, you want to be a part of Nikola.

And Danny Jimenez gets his shot at the American dream in March 2020.

That's when Nikola announces plans to go public through a SPAC, Special Purpose

Acquisition Company, also known as a blank check company.

A traditional IPO strictly enforces a quiet period, putting a muzzle on top

executives for several months.

But a SPAC has far fewer restrictions.

And according to securities lawyer Jeffrey Block, who is suing Milton,

Milton has an open mic.

So for him, this was fantastic.

He had no quiet period. He can go out and hype this stock, and he got

his cult, pumped up and ready to buy in.

And at the time, there was so much frenzy around clean energy

that he sold the perfect message at the perfect time, and investors gobbled it

up.

Oddly enough, the beginning of the pandemic is the perfect time for Milton

make hay.

Many young tech savvy investors are stuck at home, bored.

A stimulus check in one hand, Robin Hood in the other.

If you're sitting at home during the pandemic, you see a tweet from Trevor

Milton hyping something about the company.

You go look and you see the stock prices going up and you say, oh, I should get

in on that, too.

a couple of clicks on your phone, and you've invested.

Jimenez is one of the millions who clicks buy, and Nikola's stock

Trevor Milton has a lock -in period of six months where he can't sell his

shares, but he's now a billionaire several times over.

Milton enlists his friend, real estate agent Jimmy Rex, to search for a dream

home.

What did you think of that last house?

I loved it, dude. It's amazing.

The two bros strike gold in the mountains east of Park City.

I mean, it was a beautiful house right up in the canyon.

The real value of the property was 2 ,600 acres.

The house itself was, you know, probably a... Five, six million dollar house, I

don't know. But it was right on the river and included all the land with it.

ultimately he ended up closing on that. The final number was thirty two and a

half million dollars, which at that time was the most expensive home ever sold

on the MLS here in Utah.

The people who knew Milton back when are stunned.

Wow. Billionaire. Crazy.

Wouldn't it surprise you if some guy that you knew when he was 24 years old

all of a sudden.

He's worth $8 billion.

Well, if he's got billions, where's my $300 back?

I was like, huh, that's cool.

There's proof that anybody can make it, I guess.

Up next, Milton's purchase of that $32 million spread is a triggering event for

someone who decides now's the time to drop a dime.

Clearly, he was very successful now, and yet they had...

Kind of been screwed by him.

For most people, the summer of 2020 is by turns scary, sad, and

slow. But for Nikola Motors, it's boom time.

It seems like Trevor Milton is everywhere.

In 2020, he tweeted well over 2 ,000 times. He says he's going

to put diesel out of business.

Investors are rewarding people out there right now that are changing the world,

reducing emissions.

And I think Nikola...

Nikola is a unique company because we're targeting the second largest polluting

industry in the world, the trucking industry.

And I hope that's one area where we can find common ground and we can say, you

know what, let's go after the diesel community. Let's really shut this thing

down. But it's not just big rigs. Milton says he's going to conquer the highly

lucrative consumer market of pickup trucks when he unveils the Badger.

It's a zero emission pickup truck that runs off batteries and fuel cells.

Nikola finally allows people to make paid reservations for the Nikola Badger.

It's the coolest electric pickup truck the world's ever seen.

Investors like what they hear.

The stock photos they had of the Badger looked really cool, looked aggressive,

looked fun to drive.

And Jimmy Rex's half -million -dollar bet on a company born in a basement has

paid off.

The day it skyrocketed, and every time I looked at my phone, I'd made a million

bucks. That day, my valuation, just the part that I still owned, was worth over

$30 million at one point.

It's a heady feeling, but unfortunately, there's a chasm between market value

and reality.

My clients knew Trevor Milton.

They had dealt with him in various capacities in the past.

Mark Pugsley is a lawyer specializing in securities fraud.

Among his clients are former co -workers of Trevor Milton, who are bothered by

his public statements.

Anheuser -Busch placed a large order, $800 million order with Nikola.

We're about ready to announce some orders many times bigger than that. And

produce hydrogen 24 hours a day with over $30 million to produce over 40 ,000

kilograms of hydrogen.

And they knew that he was the guy that would say or do anything to close the

deal.

For a long time, they've kept quiet.

But everyone has a breaking point.

One of the things that really had angered them is that Trevor Milton had

purchased the most expensive ranch in the history of our state.

So they called Pudley and filed for whistleblower status.

The consistent theme that I heard from my clients was that they just knew that

he didn't have the ability to execute on the kind of promises that they saw that

he was making.

Welcome, Trevor, and thank you so much for joining me today.

Take the claim that Nikola is really an energy company.

We're not really a trucking manufacturer.

We are. We build really cool stuff.

But we're actually an energy company is what we truly are. He says its secret

sauce is its nationwide network of hydrogen refueling stations.

Where do you see the biggest leverage?

It's all in the hydrogen. We're under $4 right now a kilogram for hydrogen. So

we've got the largest hydrogen station in the Western world already operational

in Phoenix, Arizona.

Nikola, he says, has figured out a way to slash the cost of producing hydrogen.

When we first started, hydrogen was $16 a kilogram.

We can now produce it for well under $4 a kilogram.

If this is true, it would be a major scientific breakthrough.

Pugsley and his team, working with a New York financial firm called Hindenburg

Research, are skeptical.

Hindenburg, which alludes to high -flying disasters in the making, is a

seller that would profit if Nikola's stock drops.

Their skepticism stems in part from the people Milton has put in top positions.

Milton has touted his employees' brilliance.

One of the things that's hard to do in the world is recruit really good talent.

And at Nikola, we've been very lucky. We've got some of the best talent in the

world.

But Pugsley and Hindenburg find Nikola executives that they believe fly in the

face of that statement.

The most egregious, in their opinion, is Trevor Milton's brother, Travis,

seen here in photos from a client's website.

Just before being handed the reins overseeing hydrogen production at

brother Travis was pouring concrete in Hawaii.

So he went from concrete contractor in Hawaii to a very technical position at

the company with zero background in that area.

As if cracking one of the toughest scientific nuts of our time isn't

Milton also puts out promo videos claiming Nicholas hydrogen is 100 %

green, produced from electricity from solar panels on the roof of its

headquarters.

which it has moved to Phoenix.

We actually make all of our own hydrogen out of our solar wind or hydro. We have

3 .5 megawatts of solar up on the roof, producing about 18 megawatts of energy a

day in our headquarters.

Our company is truly one of the most innovative companies in the world.

You know how hard it was to find out that that wasn't true? We used Google

to look at the building that the company was housed in and saw that there were

no solar panels on the top of that building.

So it was one of those lies where you're like, It doesn't even sound real

because there's no way you would ever get away with that. The number of lies,

we're just stacking up and stacking up.

Up next, not a pusher?

Is it the biggest lie of all?

Want more greed?

Follow us on Instagram.

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And listen to the American Greed podcast wherever you get your podcast.

We'll be right back.

As Nicholas' stock price continues to skyrocket, Trevor Milton jets off to the

Caribbean with friends, including Jimmy Rex, who is now a multimillionaire on

paper. That summer, Trevor wanted to go. He bought a new house in Turks and

Caicos and wanted to take a few of us to go with him.

And on that trip, we were in the pool. I'll never forget this. And we're in the

pool hanging out that night and just talking about life. Dude, this is the

Tesla. We're going to hang on to this thing forever. And he goes, you guys,

listen, you need to sell your shares as soon as you can. And I was like, no,

man, we're going to ride this thing all the way like Tesla.

He goes, no, you guys, I'm telling you.

He goes, I'm selling mine as soon as I can. You need to get out of this. And I

was just like, it was shady.

Despite the warning, Jimmy holds.

And in the short term, he's rewarded.

Welcome back to Swat Box. Nikola forming a strategic partnership with General

Motors this morning. Nikola Badger will be on September 8th, 2020. Nikola has a

big announcement.

A little context to this. This news caught all of us by surprise here.

News of the GM partnership pushes Nikola's stock up even higher.

But what goes up must come down.

For Mark Pugsley, his whistleblower clients, and Hindenburg Research, the

evidence is mounting that Nikola's technology is not what Trevor Milton

And then they get a call.

We actually got a tip from a source in the company that the truck in that video

was not actually moving on its own accord.

The source says the truck has no engine.

Huxley and the whistleblowers want to find out how these impressive -looking

shots were filmed.

My clients, who are highly technical, found some online sources to figure out

where the skyline was in those videos, and they traced it to a road here in

Utah.

Ten miles south of Grantsville.

a Nikola crew finds the perfect place to stage an epic scene of corporate flim

-flam.

The road is called the Mormon Trail.

It's steeply pitched for about half a mile and then levels out.

According to the source, a tow truck drags the Nikola One to the top of the

hill.

Down the road, on the flat part of the highway, A film crew sets up.

A drone is launched.

With all the cameras in place, the director calls action and sends the

Powered by nothing but gravity, this shell of a truck gathers a big head of

steam.

By the time it passes the film crew, it's cruising at interstate speed.

Beautiful. Cut.

Appropriately enough, the person behind the wheel isn't even a trucker. He was

an actor. He was a paid actor, not a professional driver.

So it was kind of fun.

An American Greed film crew shows how easy it is.

Okay, putting it into neutral at the top of the hill right by the cattle guard.

Starting very slow, five miles an hour.

Slowly building speed.

20 miles an hour.

35. 40.

50.

Nikola will later put out a statement seeming to acknowledge these

saying... Nikola described this third -party video on the company's social

as in motion.

It was never described as under its own propulsion or powertrain -driven.

That's deception.

If someone sees a truck rolling, they assume it's under its own propulsion.

The story behind this video becomes a centerpiece of the Hindenburg Report,

which drops just two days after the announcement of the GM partnership.

Nikola shares are tumbling after a short seller called the company, quote, an

intricate fraud built on dozens of lies.

When the Hindenburg report came out, it was like a bomb went off on Wall Street

because they came out guns blazing.

Hindenburg corroborates an earlier Bloomberg report about the Nikola show

2016.

Recall that at the time, Trevor Milton said, I really want you to look at that

truck. The cab itself, like I said, you'll be able to go inside. We have a

little chain on the front to keep people from hitting the control because they

do work. But you will be able to see all the screens actually lit up and

working, which is awesome. The report says the screens light up only because

they are powered by an electric cord, seen here in this photo, coming up from

underneath the stage.

Down below, a team of engineers is stationed, adjusting the cord as the

revolves.

Touch it. Feel how sturdy it is.

You're going to see that this is a real truck. This is not a pusher. And as I

read through all those, I called. I have a couple of close buddies at Nikola's

still. And I said, dude, is this stuff true or whatever?

And they told me, yeah, it's all true.

Like he was part of one of my buddies even was there when they rolled the

down the hill. And I was like, Jimmy has a flashback.

I was like, this is what he was referring to. He knew some stuff was

Up next, Trevor Milton is pushed out of Nikola and into a criminal courtroom.

Trevor Milton, the founder of electric truck company Nikola, is voluntarily

stepping down as executive chairman and giving up his... Two days after the

Hindenburg report is published, Trevor Milton steps down from Nikola.

Good morning.

Today we announce charges against Trevor Milton.

Twelve months later, Milton is criminally indicted on two counts of

fraud and one count of wire fraud.

Jeffrey Block is a lawyer representing thousands of investors who claim in a

civil suit that they were defrauded by Milton and Nikola.

One of the things you have to show is that they actually intended to mislead

their investors.

And in this case, I think there's no question Trevor Milton intended to

his investors.

There was one YouTube thing he did called the J -Mac investing show, which

right before the murder.

But we're actually an energy company, what we truly are.

He sold the company as if they had already accomplished what they were

do. So, for example, he said, we have solved the problem of hydrogen.

But what Nikola solved was the economics on the trucking. When we first started,

hydrogen was $16 a kilogram.

We can now produce it for well under $4 a kilogram. So we've got the largest

hydrogen station in the Western world already operational in Phoenix, Arizona.

The government alleges that Nikola's Ballyhooed hydrogen station at its

headquarters was merely dispensing hydrogen that had been purchased

Nikola's actual hydrogen production is zero.

Zilch. Nada.

Trevor was claiming that they were producing 1 ,000 kilograms of hydrogen

site at their headquarters.

The truth was they weren't producing any.

Then there's the badger.

which was greeted with fanfare when unveiled.

You're going to see the real Badger. It's real, and everyone gets to see that

pickup truck. It had a lot of people who said, hey, that's a good -looking

truck. I want to see that truck.

According to the government, the Badger was nothing more than a pretty picture.

Well, it was a drawing.

It was never a truck. It was never built.

What's more, the government says Milton ordered his designers to simply put a

slick facade over the base of a Ford F -150 truck.

Ford, one of the companies he trashes.

The badger is the going after the Ford F -150 crown that can go much further

than a Ford F -150. He is just a serial liar that it's just so blatant and

the lies are just so incredible.

I just think he can't help himself.

And if Milton was telling all of these lies, what was the point?

Recall that at this point, Milton has a six -month lockup period in which he

can't sell stock.

We think what they were doing was pumping the stock, hoping to get to the

the six months.

Stock price would be sky high, and then they could start selling and cashing

out. So that's a classic pump and dump. Pump the stock.

and then dump it when you're able to.

And he's able to even after he's criminally indicted.

Milton sells $300 million worth of Nicholas stock in the three months after

charged with securities fraud.

Forbes puts his net worth a little north of $1 billion, far less than his $8

billion at Nicholas Peak, but much better than his investors, who in some

cases... Lost everything, according to Jeff Block.

We heard from some investors who were students who took some of their tuition

money and invested because they thought it was such a great story. They lost it.

We heard from retirees who took some of the retirement savings and they lost it.

Former friend Jimmy Rex says, in his opinion, the kid from Kanab is certainly

motivated by greed.

but also by a pathological need for praise.

All he ever wanted was to fit in and be the man, you know, and all of a sudden

he was getting all this attention, guessing he just got caught up in his

bull.

We want to buy a second one. Once we have it rented, we can use it. Jimmy Rex

does not consider himself a victim.

Though he lost a huge portion of his paper millions, he's still ahead,

because he was one of the first investors.

It's just dirty. I was a fifth of the original money invested in what's a

-billion dollar company and walked away with, well, let's just say it wasn't

what it would have been.