Liam Denning, Columnist

We Let Tesla Fudge Reality. Is Nikola a Surprise?

Indulging Elon Musk’s dubious pronouncements may have created space for others to try the same thing.

July 30, 2021 at 2:30 PM UTC

Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy. A former banker, he edited the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street column and wrote the Financial Times’s Lex column.

TFW reality is whatever you decide it is. — TFW reality is whatever you decide it is.
Photographer: Pool/Getty Images Europe

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This sort of (alleged) behavior is surely unacceptable.

Trevor Milton, founder of electric-truck developer Nikola Corp., finds himself on the wrong end of fraud charges for talking up (or even speeding up) the capabilities of his company and its technology to actual investors. Nikola SPAC’d its way onto the public market a year ago and was valued at $19 billion at one point. It still commands almost $5 billion today.