U.S. Nikola’s emblem is pictured at an tournament held to give CNH’s new full-electric and Hydrogen fuel-cell battery vehicles in partnership with U.S. Nikola tournament in Turin, Italy, on Dec. 3, 2019.Massimo Pinca | ReutersDETROIT — Nikola Corp. — an auto startup that was once as soon as a favourite of Wall Side road analysts and retail traders — filed for chapter coverage after failing to safe a purchaser or carry further price range to care for operations.The submitting marks the finale of the Phoenix-based corporate’s yearslong fall from grace. At its height in 2020, Nikola was once valued greater than Ford Motor at $30 billion, inked a multibillion-dollar handle Common Motors and was once regarded as the top of car startups to head public thru opposite mergers and particular goal acquisition firms.The corporate’s downfall has performed out over years, ignited through scandals and lies involving its founder and previous CEO and chairman Trevor Milton. The quick-talking, full of life, disgraced government was once convicted of cord fraud and securities fraud in 2022 for deceptive traders about Nikola’s operations and zero-emissions era.Trevor Milton, founding father of Nikola Corp., arrives at courtroom in New York, on Monday, Sept. 12, 2022.Victor J. Blue | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesThe controversies had been first made public through short-seller Hindenburg Analysis after the handle GM that integrated the Detroit automaker taking a $2 billion stake within the startup.Nikola’s core merchandise are all-electric and gasoline mobile electrical semitrucks, which it all started generating in 2022. As of the 0.33 quarter of remaining 12 months, the corporate had simplest produced 600 of the automobiles since then. Lots of the ones automobiles had been recalled because of defects, costing the automaker tens of thousands and thousands of bucks.Since shifting from chairman to CEO in 2023, Steve Girsky has stored Nikola shifting ahead, together with its manufacturing of zero-emissions vehicles, however the corporate’s capital has been dwindling.Nikola warned traders on its third-quarter convention name that the corporate simplest had sufficient money to enhance its industry into the primary quarter of 2025 however no longer past. Nikola reported $198 million in money to finish the 0.33 quarter.Inventory Chart IconStock chart iconNikola’s stockGirsky at the name in October stated Nikola was once “actively chatting with loads of possible other companions who price what we do and worth what now we have constructed.”Girsky, a former financial institution analyst and GM government, took Nikola public thru his SPAC in June 2020. It was once a catalyst for extra EV firms to head public thru SPACs.In a similar fashion to Nikola, maximum, if no longer all, have did not reside as much as their preliminary expectancies. Many had been the middle of federal investigations, scandals and government upheavals.Nikola’s inventory has traded beneath $2 consistent with percentage since early December. Factoring out a 1-for-30 opposite inventory cut up remaining 12 months, FactSet studies Nikola’s all-time ultimate value was once just about $80 in June 2020.