{"id":161528,"date":"2025-04-11T19:23:31","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T19:23:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/11\/nikola-founder-trevor-milton-accused-of-trying-to-derail-bankruptcy-case-techcrunch\/"},"modified":"2025-04-11T19:23:31","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T19:23:31","slug":"nikola-founder-trevor-milton-accused-of-trying-to-derail-bankruptcy-case-techcrunch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/11\/nikola-founder-trevor-milton-accused-of-trying-to-derail-bankruptcy-case-techcrunch\/","title":{"rendered":"Nikola founder Trevor Milton accused of trying to derail bankruptcy case | TechCrunch"},"content":{"rendered":"


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A court hearing on the sale of bankrupt electric truck startup Nikola\u2019s assets to Lucid Motors<\/a> was going smoothly on Friday. No objections had been filed to the transaction, and Delaware bankruptcy Judge Thomas Horan verbally approved it without hesitation.<\/p>\n

Until, that is, a lawyer piped up on the Zoom call towards the end of the hearing.<\/p>\n

The lawyer said his client \u201chas some concerns\u201d about the way the auction process was run. Those could be addressed at a later date, he said, but he stressed he didn\u2019t want his client\u2019s silence to \u201cbe held against us in the future.\u201d <\/p>\n

The lawyer was representing ISSO LLC, an entity that Nikola\u2019s founder Trevor Milton has been using to evaluate a bid for his former company\u2019s assets. As part of that process, he was already barred by Nikola from touring its Arizona factory \u2014 a decision that Judge Horan stood by last week<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While the approval of the sale to Lucid was breezy, the late appearance by Milton\u2019s representative was an ominous sign that he is not done poking at his former company. <\/p>\n

Fresh off a pardon<\/a> from President Donald Trump, which helped him avoid serving a four-year prison sentence, it\u2019s possible that Milton could try to fight a $168 million arbitration award he was ordered to pay Nikola last year.<\/p>\n

That arbitration award remains a key component of Nikola\u2019s Chapter 11 bankruptcy case. Ahead of the bankruptcy, Nikola was able to settle a class action lawsuit by shareholders related to the false claims Milton made while serving as CEO of the company. But it was able to do so by promising to distribute that arbitration award to those shareholders. <\/p>\n

Nikola also still has some assets it hopes to sell following the Lucid transaction. Lucid purchased the Coolidge, Arizona factory and the Phoenix headquarters lease, plus manufacturing equipment. It will also hire 300 or so Nikola employees. But Nikola is still holding onto its inventory of hydrogen-powered big rigs and other assorted equipment.<\/p>\n

Joshua Morris, a lawyer for Nikola, said in the hearing he was not surprised ISSO and Milton \u201cwould want to try and taint these proceedings.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a pattern of behavior that we\u2019ve seen over and over,\u201d Morris said. \u201cWe believe these are baseless assertions. When asked for any evidence or any specificity, none was provided. We think your honor should view these with a jaundiced eye.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morris went on to say that he believes Milton\u2019s participation in the sale process appears to be \u201can attempt to continue to harm the company for a benefit that I can\u2019t quite ascertain.\u201d <\/p>\n

He added that Milton may be casting a pall on the sale process in hopes of impacting that arbitration award.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps the play is to render [Nikola] desperate for support cash so that the committee [of unsecured creditors] forces the debtor to attempt or accept some low ball settlement proposal,\u201d he said. \u201cWe just know that we believe we ran the sale process with an openness and involved all parties.\u201d <\/p>\n

The lawyers left things there and let the hearing come to a close. A spokesperson for Milton did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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A court hearing on the sale of bankrupt electric truck startup Nikola\u2019s assets to Lucid Motors was going smoothly on Friday. No objections had been filed to the transaction, and Delaware bankruptcy Judge Thomas Horan verbally approved it without hesitation. Until, that is, a lawyer piped up on the Zoom call towards the end of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":161529,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-161528","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}