Pardoned Nikola Fraudster Is Raising Funds For AI-Powered Planes He Claims Will Reshape Aviation (techbuzz.ai)
- Reference: 0181038908
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/03/19/001230/pardoned-nikola-fraudster-is-raising-funds-for-ai-powered-planes-he-claims-will-reshape-aviation
- Source link: https://www.techbuzz.ai/articles/pardoned-nikola-founder-seeks-1b-for-ai-autonomous-jets
> "Autonomous planes will be 10 times harder than Nikola ever was," Milton [3]told the Wall Street Journal in a rare interview. It's a remarkable admission from someone whose last venture collapsed under the weight of securities fraud charges after he overstated the capabilities of Nikola's electric and hydrogen-powered trucks. Milton was convicted in 2022 on three counts of fraud for misleading investors about Nikola's technology, including staging a video that made it appear a truck prototype was driving under its own power when it was actually rolling downhill. The conviction sent him to prison and turned Nikola into a cautionary tale about startup hype culture. His pardon, which came earlier this year, sparked immediate controversy in venture capital and legal circles.
>
> Now he's betting that AI and autonomous aviation represent a clean slate. SyberJet appears focused on developing artificial intelligence systems capable of piloting aircraft without human intervention - a technical challenge that's stumped even well-funded players like Boeing and Airbus. [...] Milton hasn't detailed SyberJet's technical approach or revealed who's backing the venture. The company's [4]website remains sparse, and aviation industry sources say they haven't seen concrete demonstrations of the technology. That opacity echoes the early days of Nikola, when Milton made sweeping claims about revolutionary trucks that existed mostly in renderings and promotional videos.
If you need a quick refresher on the Nikola saga, here's a timeline of key events:
June, 2016: [5]Nikola Motor Receives Over 7,000 Preorders Worth Over $2.3 Billion For Its Electric Truck
December, 2016: [6]Nikola Motor Company Reveals Hydrogen Fuel Cell Truck With Range of 1,200 Miles
February, 2020: [7]Nikola Motors Unveils Hybrid Fuel-Cell Concept Truck With 600-Mile Range
June, 2020: [8]Nikola Founder Exaggerated the Capability of His Debut Truck
September, 2020: [9]Nikola Motors Accused of Massive Fraud, Ocean of Lies
September, 2020: [10]Nikola Admits Prototype Was Rolling Downhill In Promo Video
September, 2020: [11] Nikola Founder Trevor Milton Steps Down as Chairman in Battle With Short Seller
October, 2020: [12]Nikola Stock Falls 14 Percent After CEO Downplays Badger Truck Plans
November, 2020: [13]Nikola Stock Plunges As Company Cancels Badger Pickup Truck
July, 2021: [14]Nikola Founder Trevor Milton Indicted on Three Counts of Fraud
December, 2021: [15]EV Startup Nikola Agrees To $125 Million Settlement
September, 2022: [16]Nikola Founder Lied To Investors About Tech, Prosecutor Says in Fraud Trial
[1] https://thehill.com/business/5221471-who-is-trevor-milton-nikola-pardon/
[2] https://www.techbuzz.ai/articles/pardoned-nikola-founder-seeks-1b-for-ai-autonomous-jets
[3] https://www.wsj.com/business/trevor-milton-pardon-nikola-trump-3163e19c
[4] https://syberjet.com/
[5] https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/16/06/13/2120234/nikola-motor-receives-over-7000-preorders-worth-over-23-billion-for-its-electric-truck
[6] https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/12/03/0016213/nikola-motor-company-reveals-hydrogen-fuel-cell-truck-with-range-of-1200-miles
[7] https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/20/02/11/220219/nikola-motors-unveils-hybrid-fuel-cell-concept-truck-with-600-mile-range
[8] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/06/17/2012236/nikola-founder-exaggerated-the-capability-of-his-debut-truck
[9] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/09/11/2251238/nikola-motors-accused-of-massive-fraud-ocean-of-lies
[10] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/09/14/1946225/nikola-admits-prototype-was-rolling-downhill-in-promo-video
[11] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/09/21/205215/nikola-founder-trevor-milton-steps-down-as-chairman-in-battle-with-short-seller
[12] https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/10/16/2111249/nikola-stock-falls-14-percent-after-ceo-downplays-badger-truck-plans
[13] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/11/30/2152241/nikola-stock-plunges-as-company-cancels-badger-pickup-truck
[14] https://yro.slashdot.org/story/21/07/29/165203/nikola-founder-trevor-milton-indicted-on-three-counts-of-fraud
[15] https://yro.slashdot.org/story/21/12/22/0630206/ev-startup-nikola-agrees-to-125-million-settlement
[16] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/22/09/13/1727250/nikola-founder-lied-to-investors-about-tech-prosecutor-says-in-fraud-trial
so... (Score:2)
does that mean the profits from his last scam are over, he needs a new job and has decided that honest work still is something for peasants?
Re: (Score:2)
He probably has decided that last time was the test run and that this time his exceptional skills and insights will finally make him rich. The guy is probably lying even more to himself than to his investors.
I am starting AI-powered bridge business. (Score:2)
Investors are welcome.
He should change his name to George (Score:2)
Everyone calls the autopilot George. And by the way, autonomous flying is not that hard. The hard part is having the biological backup in case things go wrong.
Re: He should change his name to George (Score:3)
Landing and taking off can be hard, especially in certain weather conditions. Piloting while managing communications can also be challenging, especially when adding navigation. This is one reason why pilots require extensive training. And also why I don't believe flying cars can be allowed, especially in cities. I would agree that flying at altitude with no obstructions is relatively easy.
More likely to take to the air than ... (Score:2)
Moller's flying cars. Maybe it takes a convicted fraudster rather than a civilly-sued one?
FAA (Score:3)
Yeah, I can not imagine certification even being possible without major legal changes. DAL-A (or any of them) are not friendly to black boxes, You have to be able to do things like verify that the object code you produced matches the source code you wrote, they are not even allowed to use OOP because it is considered too unpredictable and opaque. I can not imagine 'well, we plug a bunch of numbers into this neural network and it seems to mostly work' will pass cert.
Re: (Score:2)
" they are not even allowed to use OOP because it is considered too unpredictable and opaque"
I suspect OOP is out the window anyway because AFAIK dynamic memory allocation is frowned upon or maybe disallowed altogether in certain circumstances.
Re: (Score:2)
In a safety-critical real-time system? Yes. Most software is good with 99.999% availability or even lower. If your equipment gets wrecked on interruptions and/or hundreds of pople die, that does not cut it anymore. Most software makers never venture into that area, but industrial control systems are a bit of a different beast than "apps".
AI doesn't power anything (Score:2)
I think they are trying to say AI Controlled Planes .
Planes are powered by kerosene.
(and its getting expensive)
WTF is wrong with this guy's brain? (Score:1)
It's like he doesn't even want his scams to work.
Re: (Score:2)
No different to Sam Altman. Except he hasn't asked for trillions of dollars yet.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
ChatGPT is an actual working product that people use all the time, so really nothing at all like this scam. You, personally, may not value it as a product, and there’s for sure lots of skepticism and noise about how big a deal AI will or won’t be, and obviously endless philosophical debates about whether we are near AGI or not, but none of that changes the fact that Sam Altman is among a number of people who’ve led organisations who have actually built something real that people can use, w
Re: (Score:2)
That is an invalid comparison. Astrology at least produces reliable (if wrong) responses. LLM-Type AI cannot deliver that reliability.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. Not sure why people are modding you down over this. It seems they can't seperate the individual from his accomplishments just like some morons claim art by unpleasent artists (goodbye Caravagio, Michelangelo) should be banned. Altman might be a dick but anyone who claims ChatGPT isn't useful has either never used it or is a fool with an agenda.
Re: (Score:2)
> Altman might be a dick but anyone who claims ChatGPT isn't useful has either never used it or is a fool with an agenda.
The typical claim is not that "ChatGPT is not useful". That is just the dishonest propaganda version. The usual claim is that ChatGPT is not useful or outright harmful for a lot of the application scenarios claimed and only has limited use where it actually works, which is mostly improved search and text summarization. And even there it comes with the risk of hallucinations.
That sounds a bit different from what you just claimed, doesn't it? Of course, you being an AI fan may indicate you are not smart enoug
Re: (Score:2)
Sama wants to plunge 100% of human effort, stored wealth, and material into data centers but without a concept of a plan of why except some hand-wavy thing possibly including AGI simulating one organic brain of maybe a mouse. He just wants to play with the survival of everything on a pipe-dream hunch.
Re: WTF is wrong with this guy's brain? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing! Absolutely nothing. You should ask what's wrong with his INVESTORS brains instead. He offers you a lie and if you buy it it's on you, not him. Trump has been doing it for decades.
Re: (Score:2)
On the level of individual responsibility, yes. But on the level of wanting to keep society going, no. For the second scenario, you need to restrict fraud and scams, because society needs a relatively high level of trust to not fracture and that means that you usually need to be able to rely on the claims made by people about their products.
Of course, some people think a working society is optional. Good luck with that.
Re: (Score:2)
Some of the world's greatest investments are on the back of pie in the sky ideas. It's the fundamental concept of VC funding. 90% of the investments pan out to nothing, but on the basis that a few percent of them do net a return, they potentially net BIG returns.
That's fundamental to investing. There are different kinds of investors. Those who look for safe investments are not going to invest here. Those who are institutional investors who have hedged their bets across a wide portfolio have a significant po
Re:WTF is wrong with this guy's brain? (Score:5, Informative)
> It's like he doesn't even want his scams to work.
Ya, but he fooled the person that counted. From TFA:
> When asked about the pardon on Friday, Trump contended that Milton was persecuted because he was supportive of the president and that the Utah entrepreneur was “highly recommended” by lots of people.
> “They say the thing that he did wrong was he was one of the first people that supported a gentleman named Donald Trump for president,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “He supported Trump. He liked Trump. I didn’t know him, but he liked him.”
> “There are many people like that,” he added. “They support Trump, and they went after him.”
Though, to be fair, he also paid handsomely for his pardon:
> Milton has given nearly $3 million in contributions to various GOP lawmakers’ campaigns, PACs and GOP state-level committees since July 2016, Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings show.
> He gave $920,000 to Trump 47 Committee, a joint fundraising committee that split money between Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, the Republican Nation Commitee (RNC) and state party groups, on Oct. 10, just over a month before the president won the last year’s election.
> The same month, separately, he dished out $284,000 to the RNC, the records show.
So much winning -- I mean, not us regular folks, but for some... /s
Re:WTF is wrong with this guy's brain? (Score:4, Informative)
He's also [1]a sleasebag [fox13now.com] who has been credibly accused of sexual assault by three women (and in general being a sex pest to many more). When a former friend (Jonny Robb) threatened to out him over it (it had been gnawing at him for a long time, and he was friends with some of the girls), Milton entrapped him (deliberately switching the topic to money, baiting him into asking for money to stay quiet, knowing that he was poor), then when he got Robb to ask for money, reported him into the police for extortion. Robb - his old friend - committed suicide after being released on bail. Milton rained largesse on local politicians, including the Attorney General's campaign. Milton was never investigated by the AG's office for sexual assault, while they arrested Robb immediately just on Milton's word.
I've talked with people online who knew Jonny Robb, and the universal answer was that he was the kindest person you'd ever meet. He had a hard life, struggled through overcoming depression and addiction, and had a lot of sympathy for others who were struggling as a result. I saw a podcast once where he was a guest, and I remember one of the topics was about a recent event where he was at a fast food restaurant, and there was a homeless lady, clearly mentally ill / schizophrenic, who was in general freaking out the guests and the staff, who didn't know what to do with her, and were probably minutes from calling the police. Robb orders for both himself and for her and sits down and eats with her, chats with her. She's having a great time, having not gotten attention like this in ages, starts joking that he's her boyfriend, etc. After they eat, he walks her out, much to the relief of the guests and staff, heads to a store and buys her a new sleeping bag and stuff. And she looks both simultaneously happy with her nice new stuff, but also terrified, and he suddenly realizes, oh shit, other homeless people are just going to steal this off her. And during the interview, he looked almost like he was going to cry when he said that.
Anyway, he's dead now.
[1] https://www.fox13now.com/news/fox-13-investigates/fox-13-investigates-utah-ag-did-not-investigate-billionaire-future-campaign-donor-for-sex-assault
Re: (Score:2)
Well, DT's the investor Milton needs. It's called "giving something back".
Re: (Score:2)
He is doing the only thing he knows to do. And last time it sort-of worked out, didn't it?
In other news, a society that does not keep fraud to a low level, usually gets pretty bad economic problems from that.