Phoenix-based Nikola Corp. , which is building a plant in Pinal County to manufacture emissions-free heavy trucks and has just announced a historic deal with General Motors, has attacked allegations of fraud raised through a short dealership whose percentage value will decrease. .
Nikola said he could take legal action against short-term investment firm Hindenburg Research. the last two days.
Trevor Milton, nikola’s founder and chief executive, posted images on Twitter on Friday that he said referred to the company’s giant trucks being assembled in Ulm, Germany.
“Does that sound fake?” wrote in reaction to the Hindenburg report: “We will become more powerful than lies about us. “
Nikola has developed a detailed version of Hindenburg’s accusations and sent them to the Federal Securities and Exchange Commission, but has still made them public on the recommendation of the company’s legal adviser, a spokeswoman said.
Kim Brady, Nikola’s leading monetary director, said the company would make a detailed public reaction next week.
Nikola has retained the Kirkland company
A SEC spokeswoman declined to comment on the matter.
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Nikola’s inventory has undergone a tumultuous move this week, from a final value of $35. 55 consistent with a steady percentage on September 4 to an intraday maximum above $5 four on September 8 after the company announced the deal with General Motors, before falling to close at $32. 13. Friday following the Hindenburg report.
The deal announced Sept. 8 with General Motors means that the Detroit automaker will take an 11% stake in Nikola, and the two together will produce an all-electric heavy duty pickup truck called the Badger, which will use GM’s battery technology. Production is expected to enter until the end of 2022.
General Motors issued on a Friday saying that the company was “totally confident in the price we will create by working together” with Nikola. “We maintain what we did in pronouncing the relationship. “
The agreement with GM is one of many recent announcements involving Nikola and giant companies, adding an agreement last month with the transport company Republic Services, one of Arizona’s highest-value companies, which plans to buy 2500 trucks and recycling of Nikola’s electric batteries. Nikola announced that he would start producing trucks in Germany with European manufacturer Iveco.
Milton said on Twitter that Nikola had planned at a later date to post images of repaired trucks in Germany, but accelerated it due to Hindenburg’s critical report.
In his September 10 report, Hindenburg called Nikola “complex fraud based on dozens of lies” and claimed to have collected evidence, adding recorded phone calls, text messages, emails and photographs detailing dozens of false Statements from Milton.
“He has signed partnerships with some of the world’s largest automakers, all desperate to catch up with Tesla and blow up the wave (of electric vehicles),” the report says, claiming that Milton “misled partners by signing agreements by falsely claiming to have a broad technology of his own. “
For example, Hindenburg claimed that, amid questions about the capacity of his vehicles, Nikola mounted a video showing a semi-trailer driving on a road. Actually, Hindenburg said, Nikola had the truck towed to the most sensitive hill on a hill. isolated road and I filmed it downhill.
Nikola said the report “is full of misleading data and lascive accusations” that oppose Milton.
“This was not a study report and is not accurate,” Nikola said in a statement released Friday morning. “It was a successful task for the profits of bare sales, motivated by greed. “
In short selling, a user with a negative view of a business borrows some of the company’s inventories from a brokerage company and sells them now, to ensure what will be a higher value compared to where inventory could end. Inventories really fall, the short trader can then buy the inventory at a lower value, cancel the brokerage loan and close the position with profit.
This is the opposite of the more general transaction in which investors buy now and sell later to what they expect to be a higher price.
The Hindenburg report also cited a lawsuit filed through Phoenix-based Swift Transportation, opposed to Hybrid Inc. , a company founded more than a decade ago through Milton to convert diesel trucks into compressed herbal gas. Swift and dHybrid have announced an agreement to convert up to 800 trucks for $16 million. But Swift then sued Maricopa County Superior Court, claiming that dHybrid had delivered only five trucks that were operating, according to Hindenburg.
Swift is now part of Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, founded in Phoenix. No call was returned to the company’s control.
Based in Phoenix, south of Sky Harbor International Airport, Nikola opens a truck production plant in Coolidge, where the company plans to employ about 2,000 people.
It is one of two zero-emission car production corporations planned in Pinal County, south of the Phoenix area. Consider luxury electric cars manufactured in Casa Grande through Lucid Motors.
Nikola’s planned products come with a variety of giant trucks powered by zero-emission batteries or hydrogen electrical systems, the Badger van, other cars and a network of hydrogen service stations.
Contact the reporter at russ. wiles@arizonarepublic. com.