Trevor Milton, the convicted fraudster who founded Nikola Motors, used LinkedIn to attack the financial viability of the Tesla Semi with a detailed teardown. Despite his near-nonexistent credibility, some of his arguments have some basis.
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Milton, who was convicted of securities fraud for making false statements to investors about Nikola's electric truck technology, published an extensive commentary on a LinkedIn post about the Tesla Semi production ramp-up, claiming he "knows truck electrification better than anyone."
In his commentary, Milton made five specific complaints against the financial viability of the Tesla Semi:
He argued that insurance costs would be “almost twice” higher for electric trucks compared to diesel trucks because insurance is based on the value of the vehicle. He claimed that electric vehicles wear out tires faster due to higher torque. He criticized electricity pricing, saying rates would not be $0.15 per kWh and that fleets in California would face $0.50 per kWh due to high charging demand.
He suggested that Tesla might subsidize charging with investor money, which would make the comparison unfair. And he claimed that the cost of electric vehicle charging infrastructure would run “in the millions per fleet.” Milton opened his comment by boasting: “We built the first production electric truck and beat Tesla by 5 years. We built hundreds of production trucks.”
Let's face the obvious: Milton's credibility is essentially zero.
He was convicted in October 2022 of one count of securities fraud and two counts of wire fraud for making false statements to investors about Nikola's truck technology. Among the most notorious incidents: Nikola produced a video of its hydrogen-powered truck appearing to be moving under its own power, when in fact it was simply rolling down a hill.
Engineers had run a power cable through the stage floor to make the truck appear operational during a demonstration, when the hydrogen fuel cell had never been installed.
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He was sentenced to four years in prison in December 2023 and ordered to pay $168 million in restitution. He served no significant sentence. After he and his wife donated $1.8 million to a pro-Trump political committee, he was pardoned by President Trump in March 2025, erasing the restitution he owed to defrauded investors.
His claim that we “built hundreds of production trucks” is worth noting. Milton was removed from Nikola in September 2020 after the company’s fraud was exposed by Hindenburg Research. Tre BEV didn’t enter production until March 2022 — a year and a half after he was removed. The company went on to deliver a few hundred trucks before filing for bankruptcy in February 2025. By December 2025, Nikola was down to just one employee.
So when Milton says "we built hundreds of production trucks," those trucks were built by the company that existed, especially since he was removed from it due to false statements to investors.
On the charging cost front, Milton is right that Tesla has overshot its promises. In 2017, Tesla claimed it could guarantee $0.07 per kWh for Megacharger charging. The latest data tells a different story: Tesla’s Megacharger network fee is $0.08 per kWh — and that’s before actual electricity prices. The total cost of charging will be significantly higher than Tesla originally projected.
His other points are less convincing. The tire wear argument is overblown — fleet managers already manage torque wear on diesel trucks, and electric drivetrains offer more precise torque control. The charging infrastructure cost argument ignores that Tesla has just launched its Semi Charging for Business with Megacharger equipment starting at $188,000 for two stations, which is expensive but not the “millions per fleet” Milton implies for basic installations.
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Milton doesn't have much credibility to attack anyone's claims about electric trucks, given that his entire career in the field was based on deceiving investors.
