The founder and executive chairman of embattled zero-emission truck maker Nikola Corp has resigned, the company announced on Sunday, after allegations of fraud that sparked a stock tumble and a regulatory investigation.
The Phoenix, Arizona-based company said in a statement that it had accepted Trevor Milton’s resignation and that he would be replaced by Stephen Girsky, a Nikola board member and former vice chairman at General Motors Co (GM).
Founded by Milton in 2015 to develop trucks and pick-ups powered by electric batteries or hydrogen fuel cells, Nikola has not yet built anything, but caught attention by signing strategic partnerships with such renowned groups as GM and Bosch AG.
Photo: Reuters
The announcement of the GM partnership on Sept. 8 caused Nikola shares to leap 41 percent on the New York Stock Exchange.
However, two days later, investment company Hindenburg Research published a report accusing the start-up of “intricate fraud” based on multiple lies by Milton, who it said “misled partners into signing agreements by falsely claiming to have extensive proprietary technology.”
That announcement triggered a plummet in share value, with stock diving 36 percent in three days.
It also sparked an investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, according to sources cited by Bloomberg.
In a statement announcing his resignation, Milton said: “The focus should be on the company and its world-changing mission, not me. I intend to defend myself against false allegations leveled against me by outside detractors.”
Nikola had rejected most of the claims in the Hindenburg report.
However, it did not deny that it staged a 2017 video of one of its prototypes apparently in action.
“Nikola had the truck towed to the top of a hill on a remote stretch of road and simply filmed it rolling down the hill,” Hindenburg said.
Nikola responded that it had “never stated its truck was driving under its own propulsion in the video,” but had simply said that it had been “in motion.”
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”