Embattled electric truck start-up Nikola (NASDAQ:NKLA) has admitted its ousted founder and chairman Trevor Milton made several inaccurate statements from 2016 through the company’s IPO last year that misled investors.
The company highlighted nine comments by Milton from July 2016 through July 2020 that were "inaccurate in whole or in part, when made," according to its annual filing Thursday to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Milton left the company in September following fraud claims by short-seller Hindenburg Research that prompted federal inquiries. Milton and the company previously denied many of the claims in the report.
He and the company have received grand jury subpoenas, indicating criminal investigations, from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the N.Y. County District Attorney’s Office, which has agreed to defer its probe, the company said. Milton stepped down on Sept. 20, the day after receiving the grand jury subpoena from the Southern District.
The inaccurate statements ranged from owning rights to natural gas wells to the company’s ability to produce hydrogen, among other misstatements. The company also said Milton’s claims that the Nikola One prototype semi-truck was fully functional was among the many misstatements, which the company previously admitted.
Nikola is paying $8.1 million in attorney fees for Milton per the company’s indemnification agreement with him, according to the filing. That helped drive the company’s legal expenses last year to $27.5 million. Most of that, $24.7 million, was spent responding to the regulatory and criminal probes and other litigation related to the claims by Hindenburg Research,
NKLA shares fell $1.17, or 5.9%, to $18.55
