Best of Greed: Chasing Tesla

American Greed Podcast

CNBC

True Crime, Documentary, Tv & Film, Society & Culture

4.6 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 1 April 2025

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Update: On Friday, March 28th, 2025, the White House confirmed that President Donald Trump has pardoned Trevor Milton, founder of the electric vehicle startup Nikola. Milton, who was sentenced to four years in prison for overstating his company's technology, could now avoid paying hundreds of millions in restitution to defrauded investors due to the pardon. According to the Federal Election Commission, Milton and his wife donated more than $1.8 million to a Trump re-election campaign fund less than a month before the November election. Original Episode Description: Serial entrepreneur Trevor Milton founds the electric vehicle company Nikola, which suggests it will be the next Tesla, but for long-haul trucks. (Original airdate 10/04/2022)

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the American Greed podcast presented by CNBC.
0:04.2	I'm Stacey Keach.
0:07.8	In this episode of American Greed, the promise of green energy gone bad.
0:15.7	Welcome to Nicola in Phoenix, Arizona.
0:18.3	Let's get you guys.
0:18.9	The founder of Nicola Motors, Trevor Milton,
0:21.6	is front and center with flashy promotions
0:25.6	that put him in the crosshairs of prosecutors.
0:28.6	And when he unveils his all-electric truck...
0:33.6	Oh, that thing is so awesome.
0:35.6	Milton says it will change the world.
0:39.3	His message was, we are the future.
0:41.3	We're targeting the second largest polluting industry in the world, the trucking industry.
0:46.3	American greed goes inside what prosecutors allege is a crime that happens in plain sight. Tesla's just really just following in our footsteps.
0:57.0	Trevor Milton targets young naive investors
1:01.0	who are looking for the next clean energy guru.
1:05.0	Your stock price is moving really fast.
1:08.0	I mean, the idea is that, you know, I don't really, I don't even, that's
1:10.9	why I didn't even know the number. I don't even really watch the stock price that much.
1:13.7	He looked like the next Elon Musk at an earlier stage where I could jump in at an early stage.
1:21.2	But does Milton have the goods?
1:24.7	You're going to see that this is a real truck. This is not a pusher. You're going to see the real badger. It's real.
	...

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