Former Executive Chairman of Nikola, Trevor Milton sold 7 million of his 79 million shares in the electric truck startup, Nikola last week, for  $71.5 million most likely for his legal battle for  federal fraud charges. The SEC is suing Milton for alleged violations of federal securities laws.

Milton hired two lawyers who defended Tesla CEO Elon Musk when he was in trouble with  the Securities and Exchange Commission.  However, charges against  Trevor Milton are more serious. Milton is   being charged criminally with two counts of securities fraud and one count of wire fraud on July 29, alleging  that he sought to manipulate the company’s stock price through false and over exaggerated  claims about the company’s technology and products.

Milton is out free on a $100 million bond put up by the 2,000-acre Utah ranch he purchased for $32.5 million in 2019. According to SEC filings, Milton transferred 600,000 shares to his spouse.

In a 10-Q filing, Nikola has sold just over 1 million of the shares to Tumim for $14.8 million. Nikola may sell shares to get the rest of the $300 million by the end of the year, Chief Financial Officer Kim Brady said on Nikola’s Q2 earnings call last Tuesday.

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On Monday, Lee Jae-yong, the billionaire leader of Samsung was granted parole, eight months after being sent back to prison, according to the Financial Times. He had been charged with bribing former president Park Guen-hye in order to gain control of Samsung Electronics, the leading division in the group. He will be a free man on Friday and his early parole has led to mixed reactions among South Koreans.

The Samsung chief had been sentenced to two-and-a half years in prison and officials said that he became eligible for parole as he had completed 60 percent of his term. He has been released as per South Korean tradition of marking the nation’s anniversary of the end of Japan’s brutal rule. This reprieve has once again brought into focus the relationship between powerful chaebol corporations and President Moon Jae-in’s government.

President Moon had promised to bring chaebol leaders such as Samsung in line, but this recent parole has undermined her promise. A chaebol in South Korea refers to a large family-owned business conglomerate. Many of chaebol leaders including Samsung have functioned with aplomb with scant disregard to the nation’s law and this has disappointed many South Koreans, including economists who had seen the prison term as a first step in chaebol reforms.

However, reportedly a larger section of the population, who are said to own shares in Samsung, are currently happy with his proposed release as they believe that the country’s most important leader of its crown jewel the Samsung group remaining in prison could damage the economy of the nation. U.S. companies had also lobbied for his release.

Although Jay Y. Lee, as he is known in the West, has succeeded in meeting the challenges of the bribery scandal and has obtained parole, he faces other legal challenges.

On Thursday, he has to appear at a Seoul district court to face proceedings over allegations of accounting fraud to a tune of $3.9 billion at the conglomerate’s biopharmaceutical unit. The Samsung head and the company deny any wrongdoing on their part.

The Lee family including the 53-year-old vice chairman and billionaire heir and his two sisters have to also pay inheritance taxes of $11 billion over a period of five years.

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Google is planning to build one more campus in Silicon valley. This time, most of the built-in area will be   occupied by its hardware division, according to preliminary plans obtained by CNBC. The campus is called “Midpoint.” The tech giant began planning on this campus in 2018. It had bought land worth approximately $398 million in the northern areas of San Jose. This new campus will be located between its iconic headquarters in Mountain View and its recently approved mixed-use campus in San Jose.

CNBC said that the proposed campus dubbed Midpoint will consist of five office buildings, according to the plans. They will be connected to each other via a pedestrian bridge constructed over a road. It will sit next to three industrial buildings. According to many planning documents these buildings will be used by its hardware division including Nest products.

The agency also reviewed plans and permits for a Research and Development Center that mentioned updates for

• meeting rooms
• lounges
• small kitchens
• platforms for equipment
• conveyor belts
• a shipping warehouse.

The plan also included “Google Hardware” and “Nest” which includes smart devices used in homes. Since executive Rick Osterloh, took over the role of overseeing devices and services such as Nest and Google Home smart speakers as well as its flagship Pixel smartphone and PixelBook laptops, the hardware division might be planning to bring its entire operations under one roof.

Recently Google announced that it would no longer use Qualcomm chips but will manufacture its own chips for its Pixel phones. As the hardware division develops, Google might be planning more changes to strengthen its in-house hardware capabilities.

Google’s hardware division has been making the lowest contribution to the successful tech giant’s huge revenues. Its website and YouTube are the largest revenue earners. With a new dedicated campus and a renewed interest in producing in-house hardware, the division might also become a larger contributor to its parent company in the near future.

Image Shawn Collins