Visionary or fraudster?

Inventor Nikola Tesla died in 1943. Few would have predicted that almost 80 years later, there would be two listed companies bearing his names.

First, Elon Musk’s Tesla is disrupting the heck out of the automobile industry, while Nikola is hoping to do much the same with zero emission hydrogen-powered trucks.

Nikola was relatively obscure until this tumultuous week, when it announced a $2bn partnership with General Motors. Two days later, it received a broadside from short seller Hindenburg Research, which described Nikola’s business as an “intricate fraud”.

Sure, Hindenburg stands to benefit if Nikola ends up in a similar state to the airship it is named after, but its allegations that Nikola had faked product demonstrations and used other companies’ technology certainly demand a rebuttal.

Technology companies are not shy about hyping up their products, but Nikola seems to be taking this to a level that would make even Musk blanch. Yet the company has a punchy $14bn valuation — despite the fact that it is yet to produce a single truck and had revenues of $80,000 for the first six months of 2020.

Hindenburg claims Nikola faked a video of a Nikola One prototype appearing to be running on its own power, when it was really just rolling down a hill. Nikola chair Trevor Milton has come back tweets blazing and lawyers bristling, but he is no stranger to a grandiloquent claim, with talk of having the most advanced truck in the world. If so, now’s time for him to deliver the proof.