Documentary and Presidential Pardon

Audible subscribers can listen to all our episodes of sccamfluencers ad free right now Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app Sachi, do you remember when the idea of global warming went mainstream and then suddenly every single product was green? It just became green. It's amazing that we lived through that. I feel like how My parents felt about like when smoking became bad Whoa, that is such a good comparison. It's that's our thing I feel like it's slowed down because it is kind of getting harder to pretend every individual choice is the cause of climate catastrophe. I mean, deep down, I think people who believe it know it's corporations, right? Yeah, I really believe in trying to do everything you can for the planet. I recycle, I don't litter. But if they try to give me one more fucking taper straw, I'm going to start a revolution. You me both sister Well, today, our scammer is one who took a lot of advantage of the green washing craze Promising totally disrupt the transportation industry, this scammer lied his way into millions by offering something too good to be true. It's a sunny day in late twenty seventeen And Noah Krchisnik is sitting behind the wheel of a massive semi truck on a two lane highway in rural Utah Noah is an all American boy with dark hair tucked under a trucker hat. He rests one hand on the steering wheel and stares out at open fields stretching out in every direction But Noah isn't a long haul driver. He's an actor. And this isn't a delivery, it's a commercial shoot for an auto partarts company called Phillips While Noah is technically the lead in this ad, the real star is the truck The Nicola w A white eighteen wheeler with red and blue stripes and the letters H two stamped on the fender Because this truck is powered by clean hydrogen instead of dirty diesel Or at least that's the pitch The man behind this claim is Trevor Milton, the founder and CEO of Nicola And yes, his company is named after inventor, Nikola Tesla, just like another electric vehicle company you may have heard of Trevor isn't as well known as Elona Musk, but he's hoping the Niicola One will change that Because if a hydrogen powered semi truck actually works, It would revolutionize the transportation industry Noah is ready to film the commercial's most important scene actually driving the truck He can't wait to test this baby out The inside of the truck looks like a spaceship with a panoramic windshield and a control panel that looks like an iPad on steroids But then the engineers break the bad news. He's not going to drive it, not even a little Instead, they're going to tow the semi to the top of a hill and then just let it go When the engineer gives a signal, Noah and the Nikola O roll down the hill A drone swoops by capturing the epic footage. Take a look. Okay, so the video is like a pretty standard promotional video of this truck going down the road. But I mean, it's a pretty big deal if you can make a truck this big work on hydrogen power. like that would be enormous. Yeah, I mean, from the outside, it looks incredible. likeike this futuristic semi is zooming along the highway. But really, gravity is doing all the work For Noah, this is just another commercial shoot. But soon, this footage will become something else entirely evidence. Because Trevor Milton the man the myth, the pathological liar behind the Nicola One is about to reach the end of his road With a Spark Cash plus card from Capital One, you earn an unlimited two percent cash backack on every purchase. hands you get big purchasing power. so your business can spend more and earn more Confidence. It's listening to your gut. It's moving forward even when the path ahead is unclear. For nearly one hundred and sixty years, Pacific L has helped people keep their promises, building confidence for generations. Whether you're confident in your financial future or just beginning to envision it, we're here to help Ask a financial prorofessional how? Pacific Life The power of a prromise Pacific Life Insurance company Omaha Nebrasa and in New York, Pacific Life Annuity Phoen, Arizona From Audible Originals, I'm Sarah Hagy, and I'm Sachi Kole. And this is Scamfluencers Trevor Milton called himself a serial entrepreneur His playbook was simple, pick a futuristic idea, promise it will change the world, then talk about it constantly online, a strategy that worked pretty well for Elon Musk In Trevor's case, the idea was an emissions free semi truck one that would make diesel engines obsolete With confidence and a Twitter account, he created enough hype to raise more than a billion dollars Unfortunately for his investors, Trevor spent more time talking about his trucks than actually building them. but you can only fake it for so long Soon, a scorned business partner, a frazzled engineer, and a finance bro with a conscience will help expose the truth behind an audacious startup scheme and the used car salesman at its core This is Trevor Milton, the Elon Musk of Semi trrucks.. Long before Trevor became hell bent on building a clean driving semi, he was a little boy who loved trains It's nineteen eighty eight in Las Vegas. Six year old Trevor has hair so blonde it looks white, and his skin is pink in the hot desert sun And he's in littleittle kid paradise a Union Pacific trarainyard, where his dad works as a railroad manager Trevor comes here all the time Sometimes his dad even lets a conductor show him the inside of a locomotive. Today, the conductor explains that although the trains run on diesel, the diesel actually powers an electric motor. Which means these locomotives are technically electric vehicles The conductor points to a semi truck on the freeway and tells Trevor, quote, One day they'll be smart enough to build a locomotive semi truck Here's Trevor remembering that moment years later. This is when the light bulb went off I wasn't anyone special at the time, nor was he. We weren't the first people to think about it. I don't lay claim on it. But what it did is it was a seed. It was a seed that cultivated over my life. It was a seed of desire build something, a desire to create something All these like VC guys are always saying stuff like that. I'm unique because I wanted to make something. Everybody wants to make something. What does this even mean? I know, it doesn't matter what you think when you're a kid, basically, in my opinion. You want to invent something? Sure, so does every kid. That idea stays with Trevor He struggles in school, but shows promise with a different skill Salesmanship When he's still in elementary school, Trevor takes out a child size loan of twenty dollars from his dad He uses it to buy candy, which he then sells to his classmates at a markup Hill later bragged that he made so much money they almost kicked him out of school Despite being the candy guy, Trevor has trouble making friends over eager and constantly bullied His saving grace is his mom, a real estate agent with tons of hustle She's loving and supportive and encourages Trevor to keep going, even when the bullies won't let up The family calls Trevor and his mom energizer bunnies because they never quit And Trevor sees firsthand just how strong his mom is When he's only eight years old, she's diagnosed with cancer She decides she needs to leave Las Vegas for a calmer life in a small town But Trevor's dad stays behind to work in the city So Trevor has to grow up quickly, taking care of his younger sister and his sick mom at the same time Then, in nineteen ninety seven, his mom dies Trevor is just fourteen years old The loss will shape the rest of his life. He's committed to honoring her legacy, her optimism, her work ethic and her refusal to quit He still carries that dream from the trainyard But Trevor quickly realizes He isn't destined to be the guy who builds it He's the guy who's going to sell it So he needs to find a partner to make his dream a reality. It's march twenty ten, more than a decade since Trevor's mom passed away And Mike Shrout is riding in the back of a semi truck cab driving through the quaint mountain town of Stt George, Utah. Mike is in his late thirties with a blocky nose and kind eyes But instead of looking out at the beautiful red rock plateaus, he's laser focused on his laptop He has to get to his work right now or he's screwed Mike is an inventor who has created a fuel system that combines diesel and natural gas to power pickup trucks. And right now, he's trying to prove to executives from Swift Transportation that a system can also be used to power semi trucks, increasing efficiency, and decreasing emissions in their fleet If he pulls it off, he'll be looking at a multim million dollar contract And if he doesn't, months of work will go down the drain is only in this position because of Trevor Milton. He first met Trevor six years ago in two thousand four in St. George. Trevor was in his early twenties and was running a security alarm company down the street from Mike's truck accessory business Trevor would bring his vehicles to Mike's shop for upgrades and always haggle for a deal Mike found that incredibly annoying, but he was raised in a religious Mormon family He was told to always help a neighbor. even if that neighbor is constantly trying to squeeze you for pennies That's very generous of him because I would not be so magnimous if I found someone this annoying. No, I don't care if you're my neighbor. And a few years later, during the financial crisis in two thousand nine Mike's business went under His family was struggling to get by. But Mike, a self taught engineer who has always loved a project, realized he could save some money at the pump by converting his pickup to run on natural gas instead of expensive diesel. The conversion worked, and to make some extra cash, Mike started converting trucks for other people too. Before long, Trevor heard about his new business One day, Mike was at the gym when Trevor practically cornered him with a request to convert his personal truck. But soon, Trevor wants to go even bigger, asking Mike, whyy just pickups? Why not semi trucks too Trevor painted an exciting picture Mike would handle the tech Trevor would handle the business. Even though Trevor had dropped out of college and Mike had no formal training, Trevor thought their outsider status was an advantage Together, they can think outside the box to transform the trucking industry and get rich in the process He even played on Mike's faith, telling him this is what he was called to do Trusting his enthusiastic new partner, Mike shook on a fifty fifty deal and their new company, Dhybrid was born. It never ceases to amaze me how many people are willing to fork over money with a handshake. Nobody seems to want to get a contract, anything, even something written down on a post it. I know, and I feel like it's because, you know, Mike has so much faith, but he was shocked by how fast Trevor moved after that. Through a friend of a friend, Trevor landed a meeting with Jerry Moyys, the CEO of Swift Transportation, one of the largest trucking companies in America. Jerry appreciated Trevor's confidence, and he was impressed enough by the pickup conversion that he decided he wanted in on dehybrid He sent Mike and Trevor a full truck cab to convert as a test run It completely filled Mike's tiny driveway Mike laid out the parts on his kitchen table and practiced driving the truck in his church parking lot had to figure it out by himself because Trevor had absolutely nothing to contribute on the engineering side But little did Mike know, while he was working his ass off building this brand new technology Trevor was busy screwing him over At First, Trevor incorporated Dhybrid with himself as the sole owner Then he filed a patent for Mike's natural gas conversion system and Trevor put himself down as the inventor not Mike Mike only found out about the betrayal when Trevor asked for his help with the patent filing And Mike saw that his name was missing When Mike confronted him, Trevor added Mike to the patent as a co inventor. But instead of making him a full partner in the business, he put Mike on a payroll instead Mike stayed on because he needed the money and because a part of him still believed Trevor would take care of him Mike, you may have noticed, is far too trusting. This is, as ever, a testament to getting a contract and not trusting someone just because they live next to you. And also not trusting someone who actually has nothing to contribute to how the thing actually works. Yeah But none of that matters if this demonstration for Swift doesn't work out Mike sweats bullets as he looks between Trevor and his laptop which is supposed to control the fuel system, but can't seem to connect Eventually, Mike says a quiet prayer to himself And then miracle of miracles The truck begins to hum After two test runs, the Swift employees pull out some scrap paper, do the math, and say this system will cut their fuel costs by more than half. Mike has done it This is the first step of what he hopes will be a revolution And even though he's already seen red flags from Trevor, He's hoping they were one offs But he has no idea what else Trevor is hiding up his sleeve It's november twenty ten, about six months since Trevor and Mike's successful ride with Swift Trportation Trevor' watching his favorite talk show host, Glen Beck who is going on about his plan to fix America. The secret here is talking talking to each other. This is the story of Passover talalking Talking where picture of the family in the Great Depression, that is the answer at the dinner table You know, I've lived a pretty Blessed Glen Beck free existence the last little while. and this has been really upsetting to be reminded that he L like that. Yeah, he isn't a name that comes up a lot these days. Let's hope he stays in the shadows. Yeah Trevor isn't just watching for tips on how to make America conservative again He's waiting for Glen to say this This is my kitchen table. And this is actually up now I'm selling for charity. I' getting rid of a lot of the stuff. and this is in my kitchen. This is now at youpillar. com You might be wondering why Glenn Beck is using something called youpillar. com to sell his dining chairs. It's because Trevor is paying him to. You Pillar is another one of Trevor's businesses It's an all in one website, an e commerce platform where people can post classified ads, job listings, and find dates. It's basically a Frankenstein of every successful mid two thousands website you can think of I mean, thank God for that because I do want to sell my clothes in the same place that I try to find a date in the same place that I look for a tutor. So that feels right and helpful. In one swoop, you can do that on youpillar d. com Trevor started UPillar around the same time he started dehybrid. And dehybrid is still in business. After the impressive test drive with the Swift executives back in May Dehybrid signed a sixteen million dollars contract to convert eight hundred semis in their fleet Swift advanced Trevor two million dollars to convert the first hundred trucks But just two months later, executives tested dehybrids converted trucks again This time with more sophisticated equipment The numbers were off the charts. in a bad way The dehybrid fuel system was producing two thousand percent more emissions than normal On top of that, the natural gas system had added so much power to the semi that the tires were literally flying off in shreds Here's another thing about Trevor He works hard until things get hard. all about the vision of a revolutionary semi But when reality doesn't match the picture in his head, he bails So, he told Mike to fix the engines while he pivoted towards UPillar, the shiny new toy Trevor starts talking up local Utah investors, many of them old classmates and members of the Mormon Church Though we don't know a lot about Trevor's own religious practice We know that he was raised Mormon And he often uses this shared connection as a sales tool Telling investors he has good spiritual feelings about their investments Prospective buyers are excited about dehybrid and what the Swift deal means for it But Trevor redirects them and their money to you Pillar Trevor is twenty seven years old and sees himself as the next Elon or Bezos He doesn't want just one successful business, he wants many He gets these people, novices who have never invested before to trust him with their life savings betweenween dehybrid and U pillar, He raises an estimated eight million dollars This is always my least favorite kind of scam is like regular people with a little bit of money that get caught by someone who's like charismatic with a weird idea. I already hate this And it's even worse because UPillar is limping out of the gate Trevor claims the site has eighty million users That's a lie UPillar only has about two hundred thousand monthly visits And the site is burning through one hundred thousand dollars a month We don't know exactly where that money went, but it seems likely that Trevor spent much of it on advertising. There are the Glen Beck ads, of course, but UPillar also sponsors a NASCAR driver and through an eight thousand canned silly string party for college students. With bothoth companies running, Trevor starts blurring the financial lines He shifts investor funds from dehybrid to UPillar and even has some dehybrid employees work on UPillar projects doesn't help While dehybrid hangs on, U pillar goes belly up Trevor says the company didn't have enough money to handle all of the server traffic and that if he had been in Silicon Valley, he would have gotten larger investments. big enough to match the site's growth That's right. Trevor didn't fail. He was just too successful But Trevor's tendency to over prromise and under deliver goes beyond youpillar Soon, his other partners will catch on and they'll come after him for failing to make good on his word It's may twenty twelve, and Trevor is standing on the floor of the Long Beach Convention Center at a cleanup transportation exppo. The Dhybrid has a converted semi truck parked on the convention floor. They've cracked open the truck's fuselage to show off a new natural gas system. onene that Mike Shrrouout's team has spent the last year developing There's even a futuristic touchscreen attached to the hall so attendees can get a brochure Trevor, now thirty years old, is hoping this new tech will attract fresh customers becausecause his current ones have been less than happy with him lately Two years ago, Swift transportation gave Dhybrid two million dollars to convert one hundred semis from diesel to natural gas. So far, Mike has only managed to convert five of them And the trucks barely work Newer engines meant stricter regulations And Mike couldn't get them to perform for the price or on the deadlines Trevor had promised. Trevor over promised Swift, overworked Mike Osent Swift's money trying to keep you Pillar alive That sounds like classic VCCEO nonsense. Sounds like what they're all doing, frankly Exactly He's just doing it far, far worse than anyone else And Swiss CEO Jerry Moyys, the man who launched Trevor's career, is furious Trevor's persistence and salesmanship convinced Jerry to sink money into dehybrid But Trevor has repaid him by blowing his cash and failing to deliver So Trevor needs this expo to work He needs new money and new momentum He's trying to project confidence on stage behind the scenes Everything is on the verge of falling apart And that summer, it does in july twenty twelve, Jerry Sue's Dhybrid And Jerry isn't the only one That same week, Trevor is hit with a second lawsuit. This time by a company with a similarly insane naming structure power. Ss Power had planned to buy Dhybrid until they realized Trevor was lying and the engines were a sham I guess I'm relieved that this equally stupid comppany name. But at least figure out that this was bullshit Right? Yeah, all you need to do is add a consonant to the beginning of a word and make sure it's lowercase and that's a tech company, basically. Right Yeahah But also, Trevor learned something from all those years of being bullied as a kid Stand your ground and fight back no matter what So he doubles down and countersues both Swift and S power He claims Swift was trying to steal his IP and that Jerry Moyys had preyed on a quote unsuspecting entrepreneur Trevor also says that it was Sss P, not him, who violated their contract by misusing confidential information Meanwhile, Mike Srout The self taught engineer whose inventions built this entire company gets pushed out He's been overworked, underpaid, and now there's no money left to pay him at all. The man whose fuel system started everything walks away with nothing The wheels are coming off the car There's no money left covers fighting lawsuits in every direction To make ends meet, he's forced to sell his home, his car E his guns Trevor's emmpire might be crumbling But he sits with the lesson his mom taught him Never give up It'll take some time, but he just has to find a life raft Even if it means throwing his business partners and investors, to the sharks Jo there. 'is I, Queen Mortuana of the Night realm, AKA Kate McKinn. And her reven minion Jojo, AKA Emily Lyinn Do not download and binge my show heads will roll air apparent on audible. I will cut off your head! Oh no. Mbe just tell them about the guest stars like Richard Kind, Karry Coon, Jimmy Fallon at all. But they weren it. And if you don't listen to them, then I will cut off your tongue, then cut off your head, and then put the tongue in the head hole A, you tried. Listen now exclusively on Audible and D the audible after today are off with your head. I'm kidding I'm Raza Jaffrey, and in the new season of The Spy Who, we open the file on Benedict Arnold, the spy who betrayed the American Revolution. America is fighting to free itself from the British Empire, and one of its foremost generals is Benedict Arnold. He's a smuggler turned battlefield hero and admired for his aggressive tactics But when a war wound The new wife, debts and politics test his loyalty to the Max He turns spy and devises a plot to shatter the revolution and help Britain capture rebel commommander in chief, General George Washington And that plot would make him the most infamous traitor in US history. Follow the Sy Who now, wherever you listen to podcasts You can also listen to the full season of the spy who betrayed the American Revolution, early and ad free on Audible. feel like a Two years after selling most of what he owns, Trevor is sneaking in some time on his motorcycle. It's early october twenty fourteen, and he's riding through the crisp rocky mountain air of Utah. Trevor is in his early thirties now and taking a few precious hours away from frantically trying to salvage his would be business empire And those hours are about to pay off To dig himself out, Trevor did what Trevor always does Started a business It might seem like a terrible time to found a new company, but Trevor did it anyway In october twenty twelve, Trevor and his dad launched Dhybrid systems with Trevor as a CEO Now, you might be thinking, didnn't Trevor already have a business called Dhybrid He did That one is Dhybrid Inc. This new one is Dhybrid Systems Trevor took the new company, filed similar natural gas storage patents, and moved it right back into the original dehybrid offices Even his own employees didn't realize they were two different companies If this sounds confusing That's the point See, Dhybrid Inc is drowning in lawsuits and has a bunch of pissed off investors The new company, Dhybrid Systems, has a clean slate. No lawsuits, no outside investors, And instead of fuel systems Dehybrid Systems is focused on natural gas storage tanks Trevor has spent the past two years trying to sell the new company, and he's finally found a mark Worththington Industries a steel manufacturer. muchuch like he did with Swift transportation Trevor talks himself up to Worthington executives He sells them the idea of dehybrid storage tank on one hand while covering up all its problems with the other becausecause those natural gas storage tanks have been ripping loose. tearing right off the frame while the trucks are in motion, nearly killing people in the process To keep up appearances, Trevor has been sending employees out to fix them before his potential buyer notices Lucky for Trevor, it works Worthington purchases dehybrid systems for twelve million dollars This is Craven. and inexplicable. I don't even really understand how he just keeps finding money like this to buy stuff. But above all, this is so dangerous. Like none of this stuff works. Yeah, it is so dangerous and not just for the people dealing with his storage tanks. Because once the sale goes through, Trevor is inundated with calls and texts from his small time investors who are thrilled by the prospect of finally making back the money they put into dehybrid except They invested in dehybrid Ink Dehybrid Systems is a different company owned only by Trevor and his family So when it sells for millions of dollars, the investors, the high school friends, the church goers to community members who bought stock in the first dehybrid Don't see a dime Not only that, the dehybrid they did invest in goes under Trevor will later offer those initial dehybrid investors a payout. worth less than one tenth of their investment But he'll overstate how much they got back and spin it by saying that repaying them anything at all is proof he's a good guy. His victims are left confused and broke, and they definitely aren't thinking of Trevor as a good guy Like Rob Chambers, one of Trevor's early investors and former high school classmates After the Worththington sale, Rob reached out to Trevor for some clarification on where his money went Trevor brushed him off and Rob never recouped his forty thousand dollars investment Here's how Rob later described it to the Wall Street Journal Dude, that was everything I had I was like looking back on it, I was so stupid Wh dumps their life savings into and do a company isn't verified. I'm going to be working a nine to five forever, man page have anything to fall back on This is my nightmare. And you know what? It's also one of those things that you're not gonna know what you don't know You trust someone, you think that they have expertise, you see that maybe they have some wealth You want some of it? sureure. yeah, it makes sense at the time. and only in hindsight you're like, wow, I just gave some random guy all of my money. That's exactly it. And that's also the power of Trevor What he calls persistence is actually just lies. And he's really good at getting people to fall for them While his investors pay the price, Trevor walks away with millions The sale comes close enough to his birthday that he throws himself a party and pays for thirty of his closest friends to come join him in Hawaii And then nearly ruins a trip by throwing a fit when his friends go on a hike without him While his victims deal with the emotional blow of Trevor's betrayal, Trevor keeps moving As the twenty ten s roll on and a new alternative fuel craze hits the markets Trevor sees his chance The dream from the trainyard, the electric semi truck is suddenly within reach And this time, he wants to be seen as more than a CEO. He'll call himself a revolutionary It's december twenty sixteen at the headquarters of a Nicola motor company in Salt Lake City. Bob Simpson is standing on the showroom floor, which has been transformed from a sterile work environment into a lively event space Bob has a long neck, salt and pepper hair, and a sick mustache He's got seventies science teacher vibes, and he's an engineer working for Trevor Milton. Niicola is Trevor's new venture, the company he started after selling Dhybrid This time, Trevor isn't pitching a simple engine conversion. He's promising something far bigger brand new electric, zero emission semi truck that could transform the entire trucking industry. And today is the big reveal Bob watches as a group of business types and trackers take their seats in front of a constructed stage At its center is a shiny white tarp covering something shaped very clearly like a semi truck In just a few minutes, the crowd will finally get to see the Nicola O, the vehicle of Trevor's dreams Trevor, dressed in business casual chinos and a too tight button down shirt is soaking in the excitement. But Bob can't muster the same enthusiasm because he helped build this truck and know something the crowd doesn't Bob and his business partner, Paul, had been building out of the box vehicle technologies in their garage, working on electric off road vehicles using experimental tech that earned them a lot of attention About a year and a half ago, Trevor reached out. He flew to Oregon to meet Bob and Paul He turned on the charm, complimenting their work Th thenen he asked They take their electric off road vehicle technology and scale it up Trevor was imagining a hybrid natural gas electric truck During the meeting, Bob pushed back Why not go all the way and build a fully electric emissions free electric truck? One that would be great for the environment Sachi, can you read Trevor's response? He said, quote Don't give a shit about the environment I just want to make money You know what? at least he's honest. I find that far less offensive than like any greenwashing that could happen for a truck company that is on the verge of murdering people. Yeah, I think it's the first honest thing he has said And that comment stuck with Bob But he believed in the good that a hybrid truck could do. So he and Paul agreed to contract with Nicola. Unfortunately, working for Trevor downright sucks He's demanding, rude, sets unrealistic expectations and becomes scarily upset when they aren't met Bob and Paul spent twenty fifteen trying to meet Trevor's expectations shipping parts as fast as they could to Nicolas' headquarters in Utah. But then, on her trip to headquarters, Bob saw that the parts they'd worked so hard to deliver on time, hadn't even been opened. He realized Trevor only had a team of about a dozen employees working on assembling the truck. And most of them were not experienced auto professionals Bob starts to doubt he'll live long enough to see a Niicola truck And yet, just a few months later, in May of twenty sixteen, Nikola announced itself to the world with a press release promising a near zero emission electric semi truck Bob was surprised by the early announcement given the state of things when he visited He figured maybe Trevor just wanted to get the word out about Niicola in a red hot EV market Bob was even more upset when just three months later, Nikola claimed a truck called the Nikola One would be zero emissions And a few weeks after that, the company went even further, claiming the Nicola one would be powered by hydrogen fuel cells an old, but incredibly difficult to engineer technology that produces water notot smog as a byproduct That would really make Nikola stand out in the electric vehicle world There's just one problem. The truck Bob's been working on is powered by natural gas not hydrogen. Those are two wildly different technologies. When Bob talks to the other engineers He learns that Niicola doesn't even have hydrogen technology yet The Nicola press release had called Trevor a quote visionary CEO You can see the vision Trevor's going for But so far, it's all smoke and mirrors This is a really impressive business model where you just like make shit up and hope for the best. I'm amazed at how many companies Especially companies that are rooted in invention, companies that are just like, hey, what if The car had boobs and they're like, yeah, what if it did? Here's one billion dollars. I know it feels like a child's science fair where it's like, that's a big idea and you deserve a ribbon that is worth millions of dollars. Yeah brings Bob to tonight Trevor's big unveiling of the Nicola One A everything he's seen Part of Bob almost didn't want to come But curiosity got the better of him becausecause he knows what's really inside that truck or more accurately what isn't inside. From the outside, the Nicola onene looks like the vehicle of the future It's all smooth lines, dramatic lights, and red, white and blue But beneath the shiny shell, it still has its original natural gas turbine Nothing about this truck is hydrogen powered And Trevor has explicitly told Nicola employees they can't talk to anyone at the event and say otherwise Bob knows this truck isn't operational because he's been asked to plug it in for the show As he wiggles under the cramped stage and connects the power cord that turns on the truck's lights He can't help but laugh to himself This is nuts Lying in the cramped space underneath the revolving stage, Bob hears Trevor tell an auditorium full of excited industry insiders real this truck is It's my pleasure to actually let you guys enjoy the night, see the truck, know it's real, touch it, feel how sturdy it is You're going to see that this is a real truck. This is not a pusher Thank you so much, everyone. I appreciate it. Thank you. This reminds me of that episode of arrested Development where they have to build a house and like two days and they obviously can't do that. so they just build the outside of it and it immediately falls apart. You know, it's so funny because he keeps mentioning how real it is And in my mind, if someone is pointing out something I could see with my own eyes and telling me it's real, it's like, you have to keep saying that. yeah And Bob can't believe it Pushher is an auto industry term for a model that can't drive under its own power This truck doesn't even have a power source Trevor is blatantly lying on stage and there's a room full of Nikola engineers who know it. How can Trevor possibly think he'll get away with this Now that Bob' seen behind the curtain and under the stage He wonders how he could have ever believed Trevor in the first place But he won't be the last to fall for Trevor's charm Trevor will take his incredible claims and ostentatious lies about the Nicola One out for a joy ride. all the way to the top of the stock market This journey is bound to end in a fiery crash. It's the summer of twenty twenty, and like most people during the pandemic Trevor is living on Zoom He's nearly forty now and he's got an elaborate digital backdrop a gray wall with textured hexagons and a blocky N logo for Niicola Cool blue glow A lot of people in the mananosphere have seen this background lately because Trevor is on a nonstop press junket He's been doing podcasts and interviews with car bros, business bros And even the podcast, Rise of the Young, hosted by a literal teenager Trevor's been hopping on the phone with anyone who will speak to him because Niicola Motor Company is about to go public. He's been working toward this moment since the unveiling of the Nicola One four years ago Since then, electric vehicles have gone mainstream in large part thanks to Elon Musk and Tesla But Trevor's niche, the hydrogen powered semi truck, sets Niola apart. Big announcements have the auto industry buzzing Trevor claims Nikola has ten billion dollars worth of reservations for future trucks and says they've planned a network of hydrogen fueling stations across the country just like Tesla did with their network of electric chargers Now, none of this has happened yet. But Trevor is out here making promises that it will And he secures more than five hundred million dollars in investments Valuing Nicola at three billion dollars Remember when Trevor told Bob Simpson that he only cared about making money Well, mission accomplished. He's been spending it too on jets, a big wedding, and the most expensive ranch in the state of Utah, which he purchased for thirty two point five million dollars Money aside, this public launch represents something more Sure people are buying stock in Nkola But in another sense, they're buying stock in him Trevor tells the same stories over and over in interviews about his childhood light bulb moment at that trainyard and how his failed startups taught him the lessons he's brought to Nicola But he also gets a little snarky and really cringy He hosts a segment on Instagram called Trevor withith Trolls, where he reads out mean comments and responds to them He even wears a special hat that says Trevor with trolls while he does it Just like you Sachi I obviously resent this because this is my Baileywick. and how dare he enter my space of being an obnoxious little bitch on the internet I think if you run a company, great then you should be neither seen nor heard There used to be a time when you were a CEO, Fortune five hundred CEO, and nobody knew who you were. You had no name recognition, you were not famous, you weren't running your GD mouth on a podcast. Those are places for wieners like you and I, Sarah. Eactly People who don't own stuff. Yes. They are ruining what is our I don't like it. A agreed because you have to have nothing to lose to clap back. And they have so much to lose and that's why they're bad at it. Yeah Even worse, Trevor also tries so hard to be deep Listen to the advice he gives a teenage podcaster on the Casey Adams Show You can't build that confidence just by business. You have to build it socially too, whichich means you have to go out and serve other people. And if you're serving other people, you can learn to love yourself And by learning to love yourself again, you can learn to love the process of going into business I don't know what that mad libs meant. I guess it's true, but I can't think of anybody less equipped to tell you that message than some guy building a fake truck company. I also don't think anyone building a company should love themselves. Well, they clearly don't. That's why they had to do this in the first place. That's like asking a writer like what do I do for my self confidence? Don't ask me, I am clinically depressed These interviews, by the way, are designed to sell Nicola, and they're also meant to sell Trevor as a Titan of the industry Never mind that he's built Nikola by lying at every step doesn't know that What they see are things like the so called Nikola and Motionad This is the ad from the beginning of the episode Sachi. Remember Noah, the actor who was hired to sit in the cab of a truck while it rolled downhill In twenty eighteen, Nicola PR posted a clip with the caption, quote. Behold, the Nicolo one in motion Technically, this is true. The Niicola one is moving. But not because of a zero emission hydrogen cell system Gravity did the work Trevor conveniently leaves that fact out in his podcast appearances. Trevor's PR push is semi successful He's not building a brand name as powerful as Elon's, not yet. But he's convinced more than a few people that he could They're mainly small investors at this point, the kind who are often less financially savvy and more susceptible to hype for hype's sake They go all in on Nikola, even taking out loans or using their life savings all to get in on what could be the next Tesla And it is paying off less than a week after going public and without a single working vehicle on the road Niicola stock soars to triple its initial offering On june ninth, twenty twenty, Trevor takes to Twitter to brag about it. Sachi Please, can you read us his tweet He says, quote I've wanted to say this my whole adult life. Niicola is now worth more than four It may go up and down and that's life, but I'll do my part to be the most accessible and direct executive on Twitter Others will follow Nobody wants this. No. Nobody wants to be able to find an accessible executive on Twitter. Pay everybody a fair rate be weird and ideally, your truck company should work. It should not be a hot wheel situation where you like rev the wheels up and then let it go and it crashes into a wall or like your cat pushes it away What is he talking about? Also, he doesn't have friends. That's why he wants to be accessible. This is all because he's friendless. Ah yes. Also, being accessible doesn't necessarily make someone a good CEO, but it does make Trevor's priorities clear makeake a name for himself and make money Finally, Trevor has reached his peak And this time, he's taken his investors with him But much like the Nikola one in motion commercial, it is all downhill from here It's june twenty twenty, and Nate Anderson is scrolling Twitter. He's got dark, thinning hair and a shaggy goatee, a little unkept in a sophisticated tech bro kind of way. Scrolling is basically part of his job Nate is the founder of Hindenburg Research, and what Hindenburg does is hunt They find companies with financial irregularities, expose them, and short the stock Nate catches liars and profits on their downfall, and he's very good at it. Scrolling and scrolling until he stumbles on Trevor's tweet, bragging about beating Ford in the stock market Trevor's entitlement instantly sets off alarm bells for Nate and Nate trusts his instincts He's taken down frasters before. and his assessments are rarely wrong. Nate sounds like us if we knew how the stock market work Yeah, he's like us if we knew how to do more things. Yeah, if we could do anything at all, we would be nate. Exactly. And after some light digging, Nate discovers that Nikola doesn't actually have any vehicles on the road. just reservations for future trucks That makes him wonder Why did the stock climb so high? He expands to researching Trevor himself And luckily, Trevor loves doing interviews and posting about his entire life on Twitter Which means he's left behind a trail of breadcrumbs the size of baguetttees Nate spends hours sifting through videos of Trevor and quickly comes to a conclusion If Trevor says it, it's probably a lie The video of Trevor pitching government partners claiming that Nicola's headquarters is powered by solar panels on its roof. A picture of the top of Nikolas' headquarters reveals, that's not true Or a since deleted video tour of Niicola's offices where Trevor bragged about building some of the best electric inverters in the world and said other companies were begging to use them. Nate notices a piece of tape on the inverter It Turns out it was covering up the real manufacturer's information Hint It was not Nikola And then there's the hydrogen problem One of the sticking points for Niola's hydrogen powered trucks is the hydrogen itself You can't just go to any gas station and fill up your car with hydrogen Nicola had promised customers they'd build a network of hydrogen stations across the country But that's nowhere close to happening Nicola hasn't even been able to produce hydrogen at their own headquarters. Nate is shocked He's investigated a lot of liars, but none have been this obvious. guuess I can understand if somebody presents to you a company You're gonna to think, well, it surely must exist in time and space. like the very basis of it cannot be bullshit. But as we know on the show, sometimes it's bullshit from the beginning. Not to mention He found all of this just by looking at the guy's Twitter basically. As usual, one Google could save your life And if all of that wasn't enough, Nate's been able to get in touch with Trevor's former corkers who have lots to share. likeike Mike Shrout, Trevor's business partner at Dhybrid who he screwed out of a fifty fifty handshake deal Well, not only is Mike a self taught engineer, he's a meticulous record keeper And when Nate contacts him, Mike doesn't hesitate to hand over emails and old photos, including a fundraising PowerPoint where Trevor lied about having an experienced chief technology officer on staff Other insiders tell Nate that the Nicola O in Motion commercial was a sham that purposefully misled the public Using the video as reference, Nate finds the exact hill from the commercial and sends someone to check it out It has a very slight downward tilt, one that isn't noticeable on camera Does that really make a difference Absolutely. Nate has his investigator take his Honda CRV to the top of the hill putut it in neutral and let it go Car coasts at speeds of almost sixty miles per hour For two months, Nate gathers evidence with the intent of shorting Nicola and exposing Trevor for the fraud he is But as he finishes his fifteen thousand word expose and uploads it to his site Pauses hovering his mouse over the publish button He can't help but feel a pit in his stomach After all, Trevor is making deals with real companies Just two days earlier, on september eighth, twenty twenty, General Motors announced a partnership with Niicola Do they know something Nate doesn't In the end, Trevor's cocky smile is what makes Nate press publish on the morning of september tenth. He just knows this guy is lying about everything and he's ready for everyone else to see it too Trevor thought he was going to drive off into the sunset But Nate's dogged reporting is about to force Trevor to hit the brakes Trevor's a car crash waiting to happen And Nate's going to make sure everyone, including the legal system Can't look away feel like a That's acc It's july twenty twenty one and Trevor is in Wyoming at one of his many houses. He's looking out at a beautiful mountain landscape when his attorney calls with bad news Trevor is about to be indicted for securities and wire fraud It's been less than a year since Nate published his expose on Trevor's History of fraud and Nikola's dubious business practices Trevor stepped down as chairman to take the stink off Nicola Although later he'll say it was to be with his wife while she dealt with health issues Definitely not because his lying ass had been laid bare for the world to see While Trevor retreated from the public eye, his victims finally felt emboldened And it wasn't just the wrong investors The day after Trevor resigned, two women came forward and alleged that Trevor had sexually assaulted them. One was a former employee and another was his cousin Trevor denies these allegations. Trevor might be trying to lay low The Justice Department isn't going to let him off the hook Their case is built on something almost absurdly simple Trevor's own words All those podcasts, all those tweets, all those interviews where he bragged about technology that didn't exist The DOJ says he lied to investors, quote, on social media, on television, on podcasts, and in print. Tvever basically built the prosecution's case for them, one interview at a time U I don't want to encourage people not to talk to the press, obviously because you know, we are the press You shouldn't talk to them if you are lying I think I'm going be brave enough to say that. You know, some people need to learn how to move in silence. Yeah So in September of twenty twenty two, Trevor is called to the US Attorney's Manhattan courourthouse to face the music and a cast of characters from his past Trevor isn't happy to see any of them Mike Srout, the dehybrid engineer shows up And remember Bob Simpson, the guy who plugged in the Niicola one on stage It turnurns out that while they worked together Trevor went back to an old trick Filing patents based on designs Bob and his partner, Paul had developed without putting their names on them Paul had a particular disdain for Trevor's arrogance Around the time that Niicola went public, he started anonymously tweeting pictures and firsthand testimonies debunking Trevor's claims about a functional hydrogen powered truck And when Paul is called to testify, he doesn't hold back He describes the electric converter lie and the Niicolo O in motion lie He even references simply the big lie When the prosecution asks what the big lie means Paul responds, quote The idea that this was a functional and completed truck. Perfect. So it's just like the entire business, then Yeah, basically, anything but a rendering And with each witness, the prosecution makes their case clear Trevor is the reason small time investors believed in Nola Stock He repeatedly made false claims about the state of the company's vehicles and technology And he did it loudly publicly and frequently Meanwhile, Trevor's main defense, as laid out by his lawyers is that he never intended to deceive anyone He had a good faith belief that what he was saying was true The jury doesn't buy it. When the judge reads out the verdict, guilty on three of the four counts, Trevor's jaw drops He tells reporters after quote I've done nothing wrong Trevor's conviction is a welcome relief to the thousands of people he screwed over But just like the Nicola One, Trevor is always in motion. And this time, he's trying to find one last off ramp It's september twenty twenty four Trevor is now in his early forties, looking more worn and weary He's sitting in a studded leather chair inside a tastefully decorated man cave den wearing expensive jeans, a loose button down, and glasses There's a camera in front of him. He's getting interviewed for a documentary he's releasing about himself Since his conviction three years earlier, Trevor's appeals have kept him out of prison and he hasn't stopped fighting his case Here's just one of the reasons Trevor thinks he was indicted. Just so many emotions because I didn't understand why Are they indicted me? He says because of your speech. Yeah, it was how I used my verb tense and conversations They indicted him because of what he said or how he said it because I'm pretty sure it's what he said, right? I think it's what he said, things he's done You know, all of it everything dited him because of everything he's ever done, but he's like, it's because of My verb conjugation. Exactly Be for real Dg. come on The verbs indicted him, it happens to so many great men In a way, this conviction has gotten Trevor what he wanted all along Recognition He's a white male victim and his story has struck a chord with the manosphere in a way that Niicola alone never could along with his own documentary, Trevor has been doing long form podcasts with Jack Dudes advertising gun themed coffee. And even Tucker Carlson himself Trevor says the government had a target on his back because he was so successful so early, because big oil was after him. becausecause nobody on the jury was a quote look alike person, AKA a white man and that they hated the wealthy In october twenty twenty four, a month after he sits down for the documentary, Trevor takes one last page out of the Elon Musk playbook He donates one point eight million dollars to Donald Trump's reelection campaign And sure enough, in march twenty twenty five, President Trump repays Trevor in kind with a full pardon Trevor's pardon also conveniently negates the hundreds of millions of dollars of restitution owed to his investors Meaning more money for him to produce an hour and forty five minute documentary, explaining why he's actually the good guy and the whole world is out to get him. Never mind that he had to trample over small time investors and exploited employees to get there But hey, at least his company was briefly worth more than Ford Sachi You know, it's always great when there's a happy ending to these stories, isn't it? I'm really relieved that everything worked out for this guy and seemingly for no one else It's really incredible that You could basically just like pay your way into a presidential pardon. It is just so insane that This guy is totally fine. Yeah, I mean, what a clean shot. He came up with a nonsense story about a nonsense company that was completely full of nonsense and then was pardoned for all of the nonsense. I imagine all these people lost their money and never got any of it back too. I guess a lot of these guys want to be you know, Tony Stark, swwaggy revolutionizing the world, blah, blah, blah. But he was is so deeply a loser in every way And legitimately didn't do anything. He didn't do anything. There was nothing to show for it. Someone plugged something in. like it really reminded me of Theranos when the way Elizabeth Holmes employees had to pretend that those little boxes were actually reading the blood and not doing anything weird. It's like it's smoke and mirrors and like weird toys these people make up. and even that actually works probably better than this. Yeah. I mean, I think this case obviously has a lot of similarities to Theranos, which is someone who looks the way they want a CEO to look like in a particularly strange affectation. in this case, he's like, kind of has like a nonsense story about what all of this means to him and the value of the company and course like you take a look behind the curtain and it's just like a bunch of cockroaches crawling over a control pad. There's nothing to it. No, there's nothing to it. Obviously anyone who believes him is stupid, but it's like, you think out of all of human existence Everything that's happened since the Industrial Revolution, you think this is the guy who's going to change trucks? a guy who's never done anything who liked trains as a kid. You know, if someone could create an emissions free truck, obviously that would change the world. but To be honest, I don' think's going gonna to happen because it would have to take so much lobbying. It would have to destroy the oil and gas industry in some way. No part of it makes real sense as to how he was able to do this so quickly if you thought about it for like more than two seconds. Yeah, I mean, maybe the lesson here is that if there is a CEO coming forward with some sort of business model that will inherently disrupt the investors that they have The market that they're speaking to, their colleagues in the CEO space, it's probably bullshit Because with Therose, it was the same thing. If that thing worked, it would have completely changed health carere forever. And there are a lot of people who were investing in her who probably didn't want it to be that different without getting too in the weeds about capitalism blah blah blah. I think the biggest red flag for anyone who has a way to make a lot of money, regardless of whether or not it's real is that it is a vehicle for them to make content. Like why are you making content when you have something that's making you money?