Nikola’s story of fraud, deception, and political intrigue is almost over – the bankrupt company that promised a revolution in hydrogen- and battery-powered heavy trucking has seen its workforce shrink from 874 to a single remaining employee.
According to a report from the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware dated December 22, Nikola reported no sales and zero revenue for the month of November, losing about $1.6 million. The report also showed that the company’s job roll has been reduced to a single employee following its February 2025 bankruptcy filing: liquidating trustee Thomas Pitta.
The November losses push the company’s total losses since entering bankruptcy back in February to more than $556 million.
“The balance sheet shows that Nikola is deeply insolvent, with a negative net worth of about $172 million,” writes Jay Traugott at Commercial Clean Trucking. “The company has roughly $124 million in assets but about $296 million in total debts. Most of that debt (about $272 million) comes from unsecured obligations incurred before the bankruptcy filing.”
Traugott also reports that what’s left of Nikola is selling off its remaining assets at a rapid pace, bringing in a total of about $38.8 million from a number sources that include:
- Environmental Credits: Sold to Mack Trucks for $15,302,085
- Wabash Valley Resources: Sold for a combined $1,125,000
- Hyroad Energy Sale: Transferred assets to Simoneta, Ltd. for $3,850,000
- Lucid Transaction: An asset sale to Lucid that was authorized in April 2025
Meanwhile, Nikola is still waiting to receive an arbitration award of around $100 million it holds against its controversial founder and former CEO, the recently pardoned Trevor Milton, though the chances of the company actually seeing any of that money seems pretty low.
Electrek’s Take
As for what Nikola’s failure means for the electric freight and trucking industries as-a-whole, I can’t imagine it matters much as the rest of the world continues their push to electrify and deployed fleets from the likes of Volvo Trucks, Renault, and even relatively tiny Motiv log millions of customer miles, and more and more high-powered DC charging stations roll out onto highways in the US and abroad.
Top comment by Brian R
What's sad is that Trevor cashed out billions from individual investors in his fraud (& got pardoned just because he gave <2M to Trump's campaign, total corruption by Trump as well).
Meanwhile, many others who played a major part in the scam and profited hundreds of millions (while also lying in interviews just like Trevor and/or saying nothing to expose the fraud) also got away with no consequences at all..
Boardmembers Steve Girsky & Jeffrey Ubben praised Nikola on TV & used their credibility to make the SPAC possible & inflate the valuation
CFO Kim Brady was an accomplice in the lies on earnings calls
Ex-CEO Mark Russell helped Trevor defraud his previous employer Worthington when he was an executive there as well as using Worthington's $ to startup Nikola in the first place.
Even Worthingon kept their mouth shut about Trevor's lies because they made a huge profit when Nikola went public & they immediately sold their shares.
Heavy D (Diesel Brothers) heavily promoted the scam too by lying and saying the hydrogen pickup truck was REAL while showing made up specs, he made big money for that embarassing ad too.
In other words: the future looks bright for zero-emission trucking, even if Trevor’s old dream of raking in billions with his gravity-powered demo truck didn’t go anywhere.
SOURCE: Clean Trucking.
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