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So, soon after, he started dHybrid, a company that wanted to reduce fuel costs and clean up emissions by taking diesel engines and modifying them to run on diesel and natural gas. As a result, the only option was to sue that investor and close our company. Litigation still continues today and is a reminder of yet another challenging time of my life, one that resulted in losing everything I had just worked to rebuild.
While dHybrid ultimately failed, Milton got a taste for what the age-old trucking industry needed and knew he was on track. So he decided to relaunch the company as dHybrid Systems, which was similar to the previous company except with a greater focus on building natural gas and hydrogen storage systems. Truly, the timing could not have been better. When Milton came out of the exit with an intent to start another company, which would become Nikola Motor Company, it had the opportunity to compete with the likes of Toyota become one of the first companies to build the first zero-emissions truck.
Being an early mover in the market, Nikola Motor Company gained just enough traction to hire the PhDs and other expert resources to get the company to production. In retrospect, a more fundamental enigma lay beneath the announcement. Thirty days later the answer to the teased question arrived. In a remarkable pivot, CNG was suddenly out at Nikola and hydrogen was suddenly in.
The hydrogen would be produced by zero-emission solar farms built by Nikola. Instead of building a network of over 50 CNG fueling stations for customers to fill up at, as previously planned, it would have a network of over 50 hydrogen fueling stations. The switch was dizzying. But what would it mean for the customers who had already ordered those 7, CNG-version trucks?
One man said he was disappointed that the hydrogen truck had only 1, horsepower, while the CNG truck had had 2, We had to do it with our CNG version too after extensive testing.
What tires? What CNG version? Another follower on Facebook wanted to know how Nikola One performed in the cold. Asked about them, both Nikola and Milton declined comment for this article. But not before he led investors on a wild ride. His company has since lost more than 75 percent of its value, though. Two weeks ago, General Motors GM frostily backed out of a strategic partnership it had announced with Nikola in September, opting for an arms-length supply contract instead.
Both have insisted they did their homework. Long story short: Caveat emptor — let the buyer beware. They also hint at raw, loose ends that could possibly cause still more headaches for Milton. Some of the simmering resentments stem from the fact that Milton first started looking into the feasibility of an electric truck at least as early as —earlier than previously reported—and while he was running previous ventures supported by investors whom he left high and dry. When Milton went on to become a billionaire, he left bitterness in his wake.
Among many other things, it revealed that the Nikola One truck that the company had touted in a promotional video in January —shown barreling down a Utah highway against a pulsing orchestral soundtrack—had actually just been rolling down a long, low-grade hill under the power of gravity. Behold, the Nikola One in motion. Pre-production units to hit fleets in for testing. The Nikola Hydrogen Electric trucks will take on any semi-truck and outperform them in every category; weight, acceleration, stopping, safety and features - all with , mile range!
But its response left most accusations unaddressed, and confirmed some of the most troubling. Milton stepped down on Sept. That was the day before the first of two women came forward to accuse Milton of sexual predations when each woman was just Though decades old, the accusations were disturbing. One woman alleged that Milton, then 22, had digitally penetrated her when she was acting as an office assistant at his first business, and she was dependent upon him for a ride home.
By the end of September, the U. Securities and Exchange Commission had subpoenaed eight Nikola officer s and employees and all its directors. More ominously, Manhattan federal and state prosecutors hit both Milton and the company with grand jury subpoenas. A raft of civil shareholder suits have already been filed. Neither Milton nor Nikola provided any on-the-record comment for this story, despite being provided written questions.
Many shareholders and some analysts still believe in Nikola. Milton certainly acts like he does. Though he could have dumped The company unquestionably offers a bold vision to meet a pressing environmental need. Its current plans call for marketing zero-emission semi trucks powered by batteries and, eventually, by hydrogen fuel cells. It also plans to build a network of up to hydrogen fueling stations along key U.
A bundled lease price would include all fuel and maintenance. It has not yet sold any vehicles. As ever more governments impose deadlines for conversion to zero-emissions vehicles, the argument goes, the demand for heavy-duty electric semi trucks is inexorable. If Mr. Milton were to discontinue his service to us.
But the comparison is unsustainable. That is, he often ran more than one business at a time. Employees, intellectual property, and funds sloshed untidily from venture to venture, multiple sources allege. Due to unsavory maneuvers, described below, he and his father eventually made millions off the sale of dHybrid, while most investors took little or nothing.
Well, could be. Trevor Robert Milton, 38, was born in April in southwestern Utah. According to media interviews and his own social media posts over the years, his family moved to Las Vegas when he was a toddler.
When he was six, he has often said, a Union Pacific engineer explained to him how diesel-electric locomotives worked. The engineer then pointed to a diesel semi truck and said that one day someone would be smart enough to build a locomotive semi truck. Assuming this conversation really occurred, the engineer was probably not focused on improving the environment, because diesel is dirty. Rather, he was probably stressing that electric motors offer certain advantages when hauling heavy loads.
When Milton was about eight, he returned to Kanab, Utah, a largely Mormon community nestled amid spectacular cowboy-movie scenery. In , when he was 15, she died of cancer. His father was often away, consulting for the railroad in Las Vegas, so he and his siblings learned to fend for themselves, he has said. After high school, Milton went on a Mormon mission to Brazil, where he became fluent in Portuguese, he has said.
Due to ill-health, he stopped after 18 months. He also spent a short period in Puerto Rico, where he learned to surf.
George, about 80 miles west of Kanab. Two years later he sold the business to Glen Pilz. This past September, the Hindenburg report suggested that Milton had made wildly inflated claims about this alarm business over the years. While Milton was still running his alarm business, he started selling cars on the side. He sold them over online sites, like eBay, he later told a local newspaper. Finding those sites to be a hassle, he decided to build an online classified ad site of his own.
But his site would have some special features for vehicle sales. In he set up a corporation for the new business—the aforementioned Lexon Industries. In he selected an odd name for the site: Upillar. According to a former Upillar employee, Milton once explained it this way: The site gives you U the strength of a pillar to build upon.
Upillar launched in For about two years, Beck plugged Upillar on his radio show and in Fox News television spots.
Milton took out billboard ads. He produced online video ads. He started a Upillar dating service. Despite all this, by April —about two years after launch—the site was drawing only , monthly visits, compared to 60 million for Craigslist, according to a marketing trade publication. By the end of , the site was petering out. This past September, the Hindenburg report drew attention to some exceedingly improbable claims that Milton made about Upillar over the years.
Milton he needed a new approach. Days later, Mr. Russell recalled. Milton to sell investors on a zero-emission future where Nikola not only made trucks but controlled the network to fuel them, said people familiar with his thinking.
While the company was developing the prototype, Mr. In December , Mr. Milton unveiled the Nikola One prototype, describing the truck as fully functioning. An extension cord powered the interior and headlights, two attendees said. It still had a disconnected natural-gas turbine from the days when Nikola trucks were going to run on natural gas, said the people who had worked on the prototype. Nikola began to look like two companies. One reflected Mr. The other Nikola was attracting auto-industry investment.
In September , it announced a Bosch partnership to collaborate on hydrogen fuel cells and motors; Bosch invested in Nikola.
Brake company Wabco Holdings Inc. There, he planned to raise organic beef, grow organic produce and provide wildlife habitat on the property, he told the Journal. Milton, a student pilot, bought three planes, including a Gulfstream G-V jet this spring from a fund led by investor Jeff Ubben, a Nikola shareholder, board member and chairman of its corporate-governance committee, documents reviewed by the Journal show.
When the shares started trading June 4, small investors poured in. On Sunday night, June 7, Mr. Nikola stock more than doubled the next day. The Sept. He had said its headquarters was covered in solar panels. Satellite photos in the report contradicted Mr. Hindenburg also cited Mr.
So far, there has been no new technology, though Nikola said, in responding to the report, that it is excited about potential breakthroughs. When Mr. Ubben managed. Shortly after his resignation, Mr.
Milton was accused by a cousin of inappropriately touching her when the two were teenagers. The woman, Aubrey Smith, said she has reported her allegations to the police in Utah. Milton strongly denies these false allegations. At no point in his life has Mr. Milton ever engaged in any inappropriate physical contact with anyone," his spokesman said. Growing Room Vroooom partnered with original Growing Room in to create a single website. The child care giant has since evolved into a franchise consisting of 13 active locations and four more in the works.
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