Nikola sold the Badger electric pickup vehicle assets it was planned to manufacture with General Motors. The buyer? Dave “Heavy D” Sparks, half of the Diesel Brothers, founded Embr Motors.
Embr currently owns Nikola’s abandoned off-road and personal watercraft vehicles as well as the Badger pickup truck’s intellectual property. It holds the only two Badger prototypes.
Badger program sale news comes at a strange moment. Nikola’s discredited founder, Trevor Milton, revealed his intentions to seat Sparks and other directors on the board a few weeks ago. The attempt failed. Milton was sentenced to four years in prison in December for securities fraud and wire fraud in 2022, including misrepresenting the Badger’s development.
Nikola has focused on hydrogen and electric large rigs since 2014. It announced the Badger pickup in February 2020, a few months before going public in combination with a special purpose acquisition firm. In September 2020, General Motors announced a $2 billion investment in the firm to help launch the Badger. A few days later, short-selling research company Hindenburg Research released a devastating report suggesting Nikola had made misleading assertions. That report led to a federal probe, Nikola’s SEC settlement, and Milton’s resignation and conviction. Nikola suspended the Badger program and returned consumer money.
Sparks announced the acquisition in a YouTube video titled “The Nikola Badger is REAL and I Own Them” this week. He estimated the transaction at “tens of millions” of dollars. He also said that he is Milton’s old buddy and was given Nikola shares to promote the Badger before it failed.
When it released its 2023 financial results on Thursday morning, Nikola verified certain acquisition information.
Britton Worthen, the company’s chief legal officer, said on a conference call that Sparks and Cole Cannon “expressed a desire” to bring the Badger to market and invited “several EV-related partners” to meetings to negotiate a transaction. Nikola is lending Embr money to buy the assets in return for a 30% interest in the firm, which might “retain some value for its shareholders” if the Badger or other vehicles succeed.
Worthen claimed Nikola is reclaiming 500,000 of Milton’s Sparks shares. Sparks and Cannon agreed Milton would not participate “directly or indirectly in any way” in these endeavors.
“Over the three and a half years since Mr. Milton left the company, we at Nikola have worked to stay above the fray, not comment on his legal proceedings, and focus on bringing zero-emission class eight trucks to market,” Worthen said on the call. We at the business see the irony that Mr. Milton is now attempting to seize control of Nikola after three and a half years. We will continue to resist his attempts to seize control of Nikola, and we think our board and management are better for our investors than a slate of directors without renewable energy or IT expertise.
Cannon did not respond to Eltrys‘s request for comment on his and Sparks’ project participation.
Nikola sells abandoned electric Badger pickup vehicle program to Trevor Milton’s pal.
