By 
Nikola Corp. CEO Mark Russell told a New York federal jury Monday that he had concerns about joining the electric-truck company because he believed its founder, Trevor Milton, “was prone to exaggeration in public statements.”
Testifying in Milton’s securities-fraud trial, Russell said that before coming on board in 2019 as president of Nikola
NKLA,
-10.55%,
he and Milton reached an agreement that Russell would become the chief executive officer if Nikola became a publicly traded company. Russell said he sought the arrangement because as head of a public company, statements from the CEO needed to be accurate.
“Anything he said in public was the equivalent of a press release or securities filing,” Russell said of his concerns about Milton making misstatements as the company head.
An expanded version of this report appears at WSJ.com.
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