They can get away with it in Bentonville since it is basically a company town. Besides being, as you said, a headcount attrition tool the resumes of those they would want to keep could start flying and linkedin.com networks being burned up.
Grand jury indicts Trevor Milton, founder of electric carmaker Nikola, on three counts of fraud
Excerpt:
Federal criminal fraud charges against Trevor Milton accuse the Nikola founder of lying about “nearly all aspects of the business.”
The grand jury charged the billionaire, who resigned as chairman in September, with two counts of securities fraud and wire fraud.
...Prosecutors said Milton built an intricate scheme designed to pump up the company’s stock for his own gain by lying about the company’s products, technology and future sales prospects. They accuse him of using Nikola’s deal to go public via a special purpose acquisition company to target amateur retail investors, some of whom lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“Milton’s scheme targeted individual, non-professional investors — so-called retail investors — by making false and misleading statements directly to the investing public through social media, and television, print and podcast interviews,” according to the 49-page indictment.
The grand jury said Milton should forfeit all property “traceable to the commission of said offenses,” which would likely include the more than $1 billion he earned when Nikola went public in June 2020.
...Milton, who was the company’s largest shareholder, held roughly $8.5 billion in Nikola stock at the height of the company’s value. At one point last summer, Nikola’s valuation surpassed Ford Motor, topping $31 billion.
The grand jury said Milton should forfeit all property “traceable to the commission of said offenses,” which would likely include the more than $1 billion he earned when Nikola went public in June 2020.
Prosecutors said Milton “was motivated to engage in the fraudulent scheme in order to enrich himself and elevate his stature as an entrepreneur.”
Many of the allegations regarding false and misleading statements were uncovered by short-seller Hindenburg Research.
In a report in September, Hindenburg accused Milton of making false statements about Nikola’s technology in order to grow the company and partner with auto companies. The report, titled “Nikola: How to Parlay An Ocean of Lies Into a Partnership With the Largest Auto OEM in America,” was released two days after the company announced a deal with General Motors that sent both companies’ shares soaring. The short-seller characterized Nikola as an “intricate fraud built on dozens of lies” by Milton.
Following an internal investigation, Nikola said in February that it found Milton made several inaccurate statements from 2016 through the company’s IPO that misled investors.
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