Legal proceedings against former Nikola CEO begin in New York

Yahoo Finance's Alexis Keenan breaks down the latest news surrounding Nikola and Twitter legal cases.

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- Let's start with former Nikola CEO Trevor Milton, whose fraud trial starts today. Yahoo Finance's Alexis Keenan following that and much more. Alexis.

ALEX KEENAN: Hi, Akiko. So what happens today in the Southern District of New York in this criminal case against Milton is that jury selection will begin. So not quite the trial yet. But they'll be selecting a jury who will decide his fate. Now, he's charged by New York prosecutors with two counts of securities fraud and two counts of wire fraud. He's pleaded not guilty to those charges.

But what prosecutors are saying is that he deceived retail investors, specifically using his social media platforms. He had such a big presence back at the time when he was promoting Nikola to investors. And that was from they say November '19 to September 2020. So that's both before and after the company went public by way of SPAC in June 2020.

Now, they say specifically that Milton lied about nearly every aspect of the company for his personal gain. And you can see there in that video we're playing one of the allegations concerns this video. And it's of one Nikola's-- it's actual prototype-- it was called Nikola One-- showing that it's moving down a hill out in the desert. But in fact, prosecutors say that, no, that truck was proven to not be moving on its own propulsion.

So a list of claims against the Nikola founder also that he had raised billions of dollars in truck orders among other claims. They just say that there were so many claims by this founder about the capabilities of its company that just didn't come to be true, including that it had produced a network of hydrogen fueling stations to fuel its trucks. Akiko.

- Alexis, we're also hearing the very latest on Twitter, its constant legal battle with Elon Musk. Musk, of course, last week said Twitter's payout to this whistleblower violated terms of this agreement. But what are we hearing from Twitter this morning?

ALEX KEENAN: So Twitter is actually a big focus this week. And that's because this whistleblower, Peiter Zatko, who was its former security officer in charge of cybersecurity for the company, he filed this whistleblower complaint, saying that the company's executives were tolerating lax security on the platform and putting users at risk and also risking the chance that foreign bad actors could be manipulating the platform.

But he's going to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee tomorrow. So this is going to be closely watched, not only for its implications on Twitter and its business operations, but also because of the pending litigation between Elon Musk and Twitter over Musk's offer to buy the company for $44 billion and that hotly contested legal dispute between the two.

Now, last week, a judge in Delaware who's handling that case granted Elon Musk the right to talk about and bring these claims from Peiter Zatko into his counterclaims against Twitter. So Musk has since on Friday filed those claims. But this testimony tomorrow is going to be very important for Twitter on both of those platforms, both for its own business operations as well as the implications that could have on this case.

- OK. And I know you'll stay on top of it. Alexis Keenan, thanks so much for that.