Nikola founder Trevor Milton found guilty of fraud
cnbc.com
cnbc.com
So many inconsistencies across interviews. Repeatedly saying "It's not a pusher", "I can out Elon, Elon", "We are vertically integrated" bla bla.
According to the company, they remain on target to deliver 300-500 trucks by the end of 2022.
"As part of the cooperation – which incidentally includes CNH Industrial’s two commercial vehicles and drive brands Iveco and FPT Industrial – it will take over Nikola’s electrical technology and infotainment system. The semi will also be given a design jointly developed by Nikola and Italdesign."
At least the only victims here were investors - many of whom probably realised or suspected that Milton was exaggerating the company's progress, but were happy to play along as long as it kept pumping the value of their investments.
Still nothing close to the examples you gave but Theranos is as blatantly a con from the get go as Nikola.
With Nikola, there were plenty of skeptics right from the start. The only surprise what that it went on for as long as it did, and that the stock price kept going up even after much of their deception was exposed.
It reminded me no one gives a fuck if their money is made by corruption, fraud or unethical activity. The world is truly a "Fuck you, I've got mine" type of place. Never forget it, and never trust anyone.
I see the same story playing out in the Celsius network crap.
Yeah, your anecdote says more about you than it does about the world in general.
I was reading about poverty in the UK recently, the numbers are poor, but then I noticed that poverty is defined by a proportion of average wages. That means as wages go up, so does the poverty threshold. It turns out people in poverty in the UK now have double the spending power of those in the 1980s. I’m not saying poverty doesn’t exist, or that these people don’t need help. There are real issues of health, nutrition, opportunities and fairness. No question, but when someone compares poverty statistics over time, they’re not comparing the same things at all.
My wife is Chinese so I’ve seen the transformation there, where hundreds of millions of people have been elevated not just out of poverty, but into the urban middle class. Africa is undergoing a huge transformation. I’ve been lucky enough to do a lot of travelling going back to the 90s, so I’ve seen how much places have changed over the decades. It turns out individual economic and social freedoms, of property, labour, travel and association work. Give people opportunities and they build vibrant productive societies. I’ve watched them do it.
Japan is now the benchmark for high trust societies, and they copied a lot from Germany (educational system, civil codes, uniforms, many loan words for things still a reminder) nearer its social peak to get there. The results are manners, cleanliness, very safe, and almost no homeless.
So we know what could be in US and Europe is way more: at least at the level of Japan. I argue even above (if Japan copies the very-foreign Germans it means something was good about Germans).
My mother is a good example, she’s a comfortably retired ex teacher who owns her own house, has a cottage in France and lives in an idyllic country village in rural Britain. Yet she lives in fear of immigrants and refugees coming to rape and steal, and socialists destroying everything good and right, because the Daily Mail is keeping her in a state of constant terror.
Do they have double the access to affordable housing? Or to good-enough and cheap healthcare? (I know about the NHS, I also know that their waiting list has exceeded 7 million recently). Can they send their kids to schools good enough for those kids to be able to have a real chance in life later on?
Because, at the end, poverty is defined by the answers to those questions, it doesn't matter that lots of "poor" people can now purchase smartphones and flat TVs while Queen Victoria 150 years ago couldn't.
I use the 80s as my reference because those are the days of my youth, when I became politically aware so it’s the benchmark I look back to.
I’ve looked for studies on access to education and outcomes for those in poverty over time and not come up with anything. Lots of studies how poverty affects education, but none so far on how that has changed. Anyone know?
Are you willing to exchange that? That is have much cheaped rents relative to your income but your internet speed go down to sub Mbps.
What’s good for most is bad for some and vice versa.
If we all thought this way, then gay people will never get to the point of being treated like any other person instead of having more difficult lives in many places still. Can substitute gay people for all sorts like trans people or black people/minorities in some circumstances.
The person who you responded to didn’t say things are always getting worse. They implied progress isn’t possible, but it was specifically about money. It’s not even about progress in general. Which were your issues.
I do agree the commenter was far too negative and being black and white. Especially for something as general as making money.
I wonder if age is the main reason. I know people more radical than me who are past 50. My principles personally have only been more reinforced since I was in HS. Which is 15+ years ago. World and politic views makes sense to me as the biggest reason for how both of us see this. Just my hunch, not saying you’re wrong.
I'll bet you aren't struggling to feed your family, heat your home or pay your rent in this period of "unprecedented wealth freedom and opportunity" for the UK.
Now is't the best time to be saying this, we're in for a tough winter, but modern western liberal society is the most powerful engine for making the world better humanity has ever had.
So by paying for the charges, he told the SEC he is a fraudster without telling them he is a fraudster.
So many salty shorts itt.
"No reasonable jury could find that Mr. Musk did not act recklessly given his clear knowledge of the discussions."
"There had been no discussion about what the purchase price would be for a share of stock. Nor had there been any discussion about what percentage of the company the PIF would own or the total amount of money the PIF would contribute."
What we don't know yet is how much damages he will be told to pay.
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/court-...
Even if what said was 'truthful', he would have filed is intentions with the SEC to begin with but didn't. Actions speak louder than words and he still hasn't done anything to take Tesla private after paying for the charges.
> So many salty shorts itt.
Shorted what? Yeah I shorted NKLA [0], and told everyone to do so in the open and laughed all the way to the bank.
>He faced up to 25 years in prison if convicted on all four counts.
If he would have taken large subsidies, like Musk did, it would've been much harder to jail him. Then he could let his imagination go - promise investors that they will make 100% return on investment per year ("buy Tesla for $30,000 and you make that or more per year renting it as a robotaxi"), promise superfast underground tunnels and deliver insecure tunnel with no ventilation/safety exists, with cars moving at 40 mpg, promise solar roofs, and many other things with absolutely no liability at all.
It's all relative. How much is hype or marketing, and how much is just dishonesty? I think it depends on the field. I mean even the term "AI" is fraudulent whenever it's used, really. But investors who actually do the most basic diligence in their research know the shot. Filming a truck rolling down a hill is pretty dishonest though. I mean trucks aren't a 'concept' they're a real thing already.
You're stealing from companies that create economic acceleration to create economic friction.
If we keep rewarding scammers with this notion that they're doing anything remotely of value, we end up with a society of Roger Stone and Trump types who are really good at seeking out and winning negative sum games.
At the margins, there's going to be some truth to this, but the kind of financier who is wowed by this kind of demo isn't skilled at telling what innovations are deserving.
> If we keep rewarding scammers with this notion that they're doing anything remotely of value, we end up with a society of Roger Stone and Trump types who are really good at seeking out and winning negative sum games.
I'd really drain a lot of money from the class of financiers as a whole and move it to households and non-financial industry. If we'd responded to 2008 with widespread haircuts on bad lenders and nationalisation of failing banks, instead of bailouts for banks and inflating the financial system via QE, we would have moved int this direction.
Musk is not a good example of the entrepreneur, but he's not in the same class as Stone, who kind of mobilised the Oath Keepers as his private heavies, or Trump, who depends on intimidation and personal dominance to run his business affairs.
Again -- matter of how much runaway you had and how fast you become too rich to jail. I'm sure his father wealth (owning multiple emerald mines) helped too.
[1] https://www.ft.com/content/e6476876-1afb-3d50-9aa7-3d40d27aa...