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Troubled electric vehicle maker Nikola files for bankruptcy protection
Legal News Feed |
2025/02/20 10:15
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Troubled electric vehicle maker Nikola has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection months after saying that it would likely run out of cash early this year.
Nikola was a hot start-up and rising star on Wall Street before becoming enmeshed in scandal and its founder was convicted in 2022 for misleading investors about the Arizona company’s technology.
At the trial of founder Trevor Milton, prosecutors say a company video of a prototype truck appearing to be driven down a desert highway was actually a video of a nonfunctioning Nikola that had been rolled down a hill.
But the hype around the company was immense. In 2020, Nikola was valued at around $30 billion, exceeding the market capitalization of Ford Motor Co.
Nikola filed for protection in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware and said Wednesday that it has also filed a motion seeking approval to pursue an auction and sale of the business.
The company has about $47 million in cash on hand. rolled
Nikola Corp. plans to to continue limited service and support operations for vehicles on the road, including fueling operations through the end of March, subject to court approval. The company said that it will need to raise more funding to support those types of activities after that time.
“Like other companies in the electric vehicle industry, we have faced various market and macroeconomic factors that have impacted our ability to operate,” CEO Steve Girsky said in a statement.
The executive said the company has made efforts in recent months to raise funds and reduce liabilities and preserve cash, but that it hasn’t been enough.
“The Board has determined that Chapter 11 represents the best possible path forward under the circumstances,” Girsky said.
In December 2023 founder Trevor Milton was sentenced to four years in prison after being convicted of exaggerating claims about his company’s production of zero-emission 18-wheel trucks, leading to sizeable losses for investors.
Milton was convicted of fraud charges, portrayed by prosecutors as a con man six years after he had founded the company in a basement in Utah.
Prosecutors said Milton falsely claimed to have built its own revolutionary truck that was actually a General Motors product with Nikola’s logo stamped onto it.
Called as a government witness, Nikola’s CEO testified that Milton “was prone to exaggeration” when pitching his venture to investors.
Milton resigned in 2020 amid reports of fraud that sent Nikola’s stock prices into a tailspin. Investors suffered heavy losses as reports questioned Milton’s claims that the company had already produced zero-emission 18-wheel trucks.
The company paid $125 million in 2021 to settle a civil case against it by the SEC. Nikola didn’t admit any wrongdoing.
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Musk gives all federal workers 48 hours to explain what they did last week
Legal Line News |
2025/02/18 10:13
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Hundreds of thousands of federal workers have been given little more than 48 hours to explain what they accomplished over the last week, sparking confusion across key agencies as billionaire Elon Musk expands his crusade to slash the size of federal government.
Musk, who serves as President Donald Trump’s cost-cutting chief, telegraphed the extraordinary request on his social media network on Saturday.
“Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week,” Musk posted on X, which he owns. “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”
Shortly afterward, federal employees — including some judges, court staff and federal prison officials — received a three-line email with this instruction: “Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager.”
The deadline to reply was listed as Monday at 11:59 p.m., although the email did not include Musk’s social media threat about those who fail to respond.
The latest unusual directive from Musk’s team injects a new sense of chaos across beleaguered multiple agencies, including the National Weather Service, the State Department and the federal court system, as senior officials worked to verify the message’s authenticity Saturday night and in some cases, instructed their employees not to respond.
Thousands of government employees have already been forced out of the federal workforce — either by being fired or offered a buyout — during the first month of Trump’s administration as the White House and Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency fire both new and career workers, tell agency leaders to plan for “large-scale reductions in force” and freeze trillions of dollars in federal grant funds.
There is no official figure available for the total firings or layoffs so far, but The Associated Press has tallied hundreds of thousands of workers who are being affected. Many work outside of Washington. The cuts include thousands at the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Defense, Health and Human Services, the Internal Revenue Service and the National Parks Service, among others.
Labor union leaders quickly condemned the ultimatum and threatened legal action.
AFGE President Everett Kelley called the new order an example of Trump and Musk’s “utter disdain for federal employees and the critical services they provide to the American people.”
“It is cruel and disrespectful to hundreds of thousands of veterans who are wearing their second uniform in the civil service to be forced to justify their job duties to this out-of-touch, privileged, unelected billionaire who has never performed one single hour of honest public service in his life,” Kelley said. “AFGE will challenge any unlawful terminations of our members and federal employees across the country.”
Musk on Friday celebrated his new role at a gathering of conservatives by waving a giant chainsaw in the air. He called it “the chainsaw for bureaucracy” and said, “Waste is pretty much everywhere” in the federal government.
McLaurine Pinover, a spokesperson at the Office of Personnel Management, confirmed Musk’s directive and said that individual agencies would “determine any next steps.”
What happens if an employee is on leave or vacation? Again, she said individual agencies would determine how to proceed.
In a message to employees on Saturday night, federal court officials instructed recipients not to respond.
“We understand that some judges and judiciary staff have received an email ... directing the recipient to reply with 5 accomplishments from the prior week. Please be advised that this email did not originate from the Judiciary or the Administrative Office and we suggest that no action be taken,” officials wrote.
Judges around the country got emails from Musk’s team in late January, apparently by mistake, U.S. District Judge Randolph Daniel Moss said earlier this month. Moss said he’d also gotten a message and ignored it.
The National Weather Service leadership acknowledged some confusion in a message to its employees late Saturday as well.
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What changes to the CHIPS act could mean for AI growth and consumers
U.S. Court News |
2025/02/15 10:16
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Even as he’s vowed to push the United States ahead in artificial intelligence research, President Donald Trump’s threats to alter federal government contracts with chipmakers and slap new tariffs on the semiconductor industry may put new speed bumps in front of the tech industry.
Since taking office, Trump has said he would place tariffs on foreign production of computer chips and semiconductors in order to return chip manufacturing to the U.S. The president and Republican lawmakers have also threatened to end the CHIPS and Science Act, a sweeping Biden administration-era law that also sought to boost domestic production.
But economic experts have warned that Trump’s dual-pronged approach could slow, or potentially harm, the administration’s goal of ensuring that the U.S. maintains a competitive edge in artificial intelligence research.
Saikat Chaudhuri, an expert on corporate growth and innovation at U.C. Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, called Trump’s derision of the CHIPS Act surprising because one of the biggest bottlenecks for the advancement of AI has been chip production. Most countries, Chaudhuri said, are trying to encourage chip production and the import of chips at favorable rates.
“We have seen what the shortage has done in everything from AI to even cars,” he said. “In the pandemic, cars had to do with fewer or less powerful chips in order to just deal with the supply constraints.”
The Biden administration helped shepherd in the law following supply disruptions that occurred after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic ? when a shortage of chips stalled factory assembly lines and fueled inflation ? threatened to plunge the U.S. economy into recession. When pushing for the investment, lawmakers also said they were concerned about efforts by China to control Taiwan, which accounts for more than 90% of advanced computer chip production.
As of August 2024, the CHIPS and Science Act had provided $30 billion in support for 23 projects in 15 states that would add 115,000 manufacturing and construction jobs, according to the Commerce Department. That funding helped to draw in private capital and would enable the U.S. to produce 30% of the world’s most advanced computer chips, up from 0% when the Biden-Harris administration succeeded Trump’s first term.
The administration promised tens of billions of dollars to support the construction of U.S. chip foundries and reduce reliance on Asian suppliers, which Washington sees as a security weakness. In August, the Commerce Department pledged to provide up to $6.6 billion so that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. could expand the facilities it is already building in Arizona and better ensure that the most advanced microchips are produced domestically for the first time.
But Trump has said he believes that companies entering into those contracts with the federal government, such as TSMC, “didn’t need money” in order to prioritize chipmaking in the U.S.
“They needed an incentive. And the incentive is going to be they’re not going to want to pay at 25, 50 or even 100% tax,” Trump said. TSMC held board meetings for the first time in the U.S. last week. Trump has signaled that if companies want to avoid tariffs they have to build their plants in the U.S. ? without help from the government. Taiwan also dispatched two senior economic affairs officials to Washington to meet with the Trump administration in a bid to potentially fend off a 100% tariff Trump has threatened to impose on chips.
If the Trump administration does levy tariffs, Chaudhuri said, one immediate concern is that prices of goods that use semiconductors and chips will rise because the higher costs associated with tariffs are typically passed to consumers.
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Steve Bannon pleads guilty and avoids jail time in border wall fraud case
U.S. Court News |
2025/02/13 20:15
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Steve Bannon pleaded guilty on Tuesday to defrauding donors to a private effort to build a wall on the U.S. southern border, ending a case the conservative strategist decried as a “political persecution.”
Spared from jail as part of a plea deal, he left court saying he “felt like a million bucks.”
Bannon, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, pleaded guilty in state court in Manhattan to one count of scheme to defraud, a low-level felony. The case involved We Build the Wall, a non-profit that Bannon himself once suspected was a scam.
Bannon, 71, must stay out of trouble for three years to avoid additional punishment, including possible jail time. He also can’t raise money or serve as an officer or director for charities in New York and can’t use, sell, or possess any data gathered from border wall donors. Bannon had been scheduled to go to trial March 4.
His lawyer, Arthur Aidala, said Bannon wanted to “put up a fight,” but opted to plead guilty after weighing how a jury in heavily Democratic Manhattan might judge him. Under the deal, prosecutors agreed to drop money laundering and conspiracy charges against him.
Bannon’s plea deal came just days after U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered the Justice Department to investigate what Trump called the “ weaponization of prosecutorial power.”
Outside court, Bannon urged Bondi to immediately open criminal investigations into Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office prosecuted him, and New York Attorney General Letitia James, who sued Trump over his business practices and is leading legal challenges to his administration’s policies. Both are Democrats.
Bragg “can call a grand jury at any time” and “set up criminal charges on the most bogus efforts,” Bannon said. He called James the “queen of lawfare” and warned that Trump and his allies “ought to be worried about this out-of-control city.”
Bragg and James’ office didn’t immediately respond to Bannon’s comments.
Bragg took up the case and charged Bannon with state offenses after Trump cut a federal prosecution short with a pardon in the final hours of his first term in 2021. Presidential pardons apply only to federal crimes, not state offenses.
Bannon was charged with falsely promising donors, including some in New York, that all money given to We Build the Wall would go toward erecting a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Instead, prosecutors alleged the money was used to enrich Bannon and others involved in the project.
The campaign, launched in 2018 after Trump fired Bannon as his chief strategist, quickly raised over $20 million and privately built a few miles of fencing along the border. It soon ran into trouble with the International Boundary and Water Commission, came under federal investigation and drew criticism from Trump, the Republican whose policy the charity was founded to support. |
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