“There is a saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”
Those were the immortal words of President George W. Bush in September 2002, mangling the old proverb so badly that it became one of the most replayed clips in American political history. Bush couldn’t quite recall the ending, “fool me twice, shame on me,” but we all got the gist.
I still laughed about it this week when I thought of it while reading about Trevor Milton, the disgraced founder of Nikola Motor Company, who is now back as the CEO of SyberJet Aircraft. The story has all the familiar Milton ingredients, including a charismatic founder, a revolutionary technology that doesn’t exist yet, and a business that is likely to consume hundreds of millions of dollars without producing much of anything. The question is whether enough people remember the first act to avoid getting fooled again.
The Dropout Visionary
Trevor Milton’s origin story reads like the quintessential Silicon Valley founder: college dropout, serial entrepreneur, and boundless ambition. After a brief stint at Utah Valley University (one semester), Milton launched a string of businesses in Utah, starting with an alarm company and eventually moving into natural gas truck conversions through a company called dHybrid. That venture ended in a lawsuit alleging Milton’s company delivered a fraction of the promised trucks and that the ones it did deliver didn’t work. Milton pivoted, rebranded, and sold a successor entity to Worthington Industries for enough capital to fund what came next.
What came next was Nikola Motor Company, founded in 2015 with the goal of building hydrogen-electric semi-trucks. Milton was magnetic. Through social media and a relentless media presence, he built Nikola into one of the most hyped companies in the clean energy space. When Nikola went public via a SPAC merger in June 2020, its market capitalization briefly exceeded that of Ford Motor Company. A company with zero revenue, zero deliveries, and zero commercial products was, for a fleeting moment, worth more than the maker of the F-150.
The Truck That Rolled Downhill
The problem, as we now know, was that almost all of Nikola’s story was built on gravity. What do I mean by that? Well, in 2018, Nikola released a video showing its prototype semi-truck cruising along a desert highway, seemingly under its own power. The company later admitted that the truck had been towed to the top of a hill and allowed to roll down. It didn’t have functioning gears. It didn’t have a working motor. It was a prop on a slope.
When short-selling firm Hindenburg Research published its damning report in September 2020, the facade crumbled. Milton stepped down within ten days. By 2022, a federal jury convicted him of securities fraud and wire fraud. He was sentenced to four years in prison. Nikola settled with the SEC for $125 million and eventually filed for bankruptcy in early 2025.
And then, something remarkable happened. In March 2025, Milton received an unconditional presidential pardon. The conviction was wiped clean. The SEC dropped its civil enforcement cases. Milton, who had cashed in nearly $400 million in Nikola stock around the company’s public listing, was a free man with a clean slate and a desire to “build” something new.
Planes Are Easier Than Trucks?
Enter SyberJet Aircraft, a small jet manufacturer in Arizona with a history almost as troubled as Milton’s own. The company traces its roots to the 1980s and aircraft designer Ed Swearingen, who envisioned a lightweight business jet called the SJ30. The plane was impressive on paper with a cruise speed of Mach 0.83, a range of 2,500 nautical miles, and cabin pressure that could maintain sea-level comfort at 41,000 feet.
But remarkable specs didn’t translate into a remarkable business. Over the next four decades, the SJ30 program passed through a revolving door of owners, including Taiwanese government-backed investors, Lockheed Martin, and a Dubai-based investment firm. Hundreds of millions of dollars were burned. A prototype crashed during testing. Suppliers refused to work with the company because its funding was perpetually shaky. By 2016, an industry analyst offered a blunt assessment: “It’s dead.”
In its entire four-decade existence, the company delivered a grand total of four jets to customers. Four. With no zeros after it.
Milton purchased the company in 2024 and wasted no time applying his signature playbook. He brought in dozens of former Nikola employees. He announced plans for the SJ36, a stretched, nine-seat version of the original jet that he claims will fly nonstop from New York to Los Angeles. He unveiled “SyberVision,” a proprietary avionics suite being built entirely in-house, which is a move analysts have criticized as risky and time-consuming, given that virtually every other jet manufacturer outsources this software to companies like Honeywell or Garmin. He’s producing a YouTube documentary series. And he’s seeking to raise $1 billion from investors at a $4 billion valuation.
If the playbook sounds familiar, that’s because it is.
We’ve Seen This Movie Before
I’m not a regulator, and I have no idea whether SyberJet will ultimately succeed or fail. Milton himself has acknowledged that the likelihood of success is low. What I can say is that the pattern recognition here is almost impossible to ignore.
At Nikola, Milton claimed the company was building technology “from the ground up” when critical components were actually sourced from third parties. At SyberJet, he’s making the same “ground-up” claims about avionics and electrical systems. At Nikola, the company’s valuation soared on the promise of a product that was years from delivery. At SyberJet, the target date for the SJ36 is 2032, a seven-year runway that allows the company to raise capital and generate buzz without ever having to deliver a finished aircraft. At Nikola, Milton used charismatic storytelling to build enthusiasm among retail investors. The YouTube documentary and SyberJet’s lavishly branded lounge at a Kennedy Center Honors event suggest the same strategy, just with nicer chandeliers.
Oh, and the executive team page on SyberJet’s website? It says “Coming Soon.”
The Investor Takeaway
This is not an article about politics or pardons. It’s about a principle that should sit at the foundation of every long-term decision: past behavior is the single best predictor of future behavior. This is not cynicism; it’s pattern recognition, and it’s one of the most reliable tools we have.
Management teams need to be assessed just the same way the financials are. A company’s technology can be revolutionary and its market opportunity massive, but if the person at the helm has a history of overpromising and underdelivering, no amount of marketing should override that signal. The SJ30 is an FAA-certified jet with impressive performance metrics. That part is real. But the SJ30 is not in production, and the SJ36 does not exist. The SyberVision avionics suite does not exist either. And the company is asking investors to fund the bridge between today’s reality and tomorrow’s renderings to the tune of $1 billion, led by a team from a company that went bankrupt.
The lesson is simple. Always separate the sizzle from the steak. Investigate who is running the company, not just what the company claims to be building. And when the story sounds too good, the timeline is conveniently long, and the person telling it has told a very similar story before, you know how the saying goes.
Don’t Get Fooled Again
I’ll save you the embarrassment of trying to quote it correctly. The point is clear enough. Whether it’s a hydrogen truck rolling downhill or a next-generation jet that exists only as a rendering, the mechanics of hype haven’t changed. The promises are always grand. The timelines are always long. And the ask is always the same. Trust me, and give me your money.
I wouldn’t bet on seeing an SJ36 at any airport, ever. But even if I’m wrong, the broader principle holds. The most important due diligence you can do isn’t reading a pitch deck or watching a promotional video. It’s studying the person handing it to you. Because in investing, as in life, when someone shows you who they are, believe them, the first time.
Markets / Economy
- Markets were weak again, as energy infrastructure attacks stepped up this week in the ongoing conflict with Iran. The S&P finished the week down -1.9%, the Nasdaq down -2.1%, and the small-cap Russell 2000 down -1.7%.
- The average contract rate on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages for conforming loans increased to 6.30% in the week ending March 13, 2026, up from 6.19% the previous week.
- U.S. producer prices rose 0.7% MoM in February, above 0.5% in January and well above forecasts of 0.3%. It is the biggest increase in producer prices in seven months.
- The Fed left rates steady at the 3.5%–3.75% target range for a 2nd consecutive meeting in March, as expected. Policymakers noted that economic activity has been expanding at a solid pace, job gains have remained low, and inflation remains somewhat elevated.
Stocks
- U.S. equities were in negative territory. Utilities and Materials led the decline, while Energy and Financials outperformed. Growth stocks led value stocks, and small caps beat large caps.
- International equities closed lower for the week. Emerging markets fared better than developed markets.
Bonds
- The 10-year Treasury bond yield increased 11 basis points to 4.39% during the week.
- Global bond markets were in negative territory this week.
- High-yield bonds led for the week, followed by corporate bonds and government bonds.
