Nikola Corp. founder Trevor Milton wasn’t truthful when he claimed his company was responsible for most of the components in a planned pickup truck General Motors was to build for the electric vehicle maker, a GM engineer testified.
“There were no components coming from Nikola,” Scott Damman, a senior manager at GM working on software, told the jury in Milton’s criminal fraud trial Thursday. “They owned the creative design, what the vehicle looked like and felt like, but all of the parts were to come from General Motors.”
Milton is accused of misleading investors by exaggerating the company’s progress toward introducing vehicles for sale and of lying about Nikola’s technology and partnerships. The defense argues he was just following the corporate marketing plan and never said anything he didn’t believe to be true.
The testimony from Damman, whom GM sent to work with Nikola at the time, came in response to questioning about a video interview Milton gave …