Paul Lackey worked as a contractor for Nikola in the early days of the electric truck company. On the witness stand in Trevor Milton’s fraud trial this week, he spoke of a founder more interested in making money than cleaning up the environment.
But Lackey wasn’t exactly a dream witness for the prosecution. He collected about $600,000 in stock sale proceeds after aligning himself with short sellers that nearly crushed the startup.
As the prosecution’s first witness on Tuesday in a trial expected to last four to five weeks, Lackey described an environment in which he and other contract engineers worked on an early natural gas and electric prototype of the since-canceled Nikola One fuel cell truck. Lackey said the truck had to be pushed on stage for its reveal in December 2016.
Milton told the audience that day the truck was missing some parts. But he maintained it was “not a pusher” and capable of running under its own power. That assertion and a later video of the truck rolling down a hill are keys to the government case. They are trying to show a pattern of Milton lying to entice investors to buy Nikola stock.
“When we brought up making the prototype zero emissions, Mr. Milton was dismissive. He said, ‘I don’t give a s*** about the environment. I just want to make money,’” Lackey said, “I was shocked. At that time about climate change I was a bright-eyed idealist.”
But under cross-examination by Milton’s attorney, Ken Caruso, Lackey acknowledged he...
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