Hindenburg, which accused Nikola, now does the same to Lordstown Motors

Shares of Lordstown Motors Corp fell as much as 23% on Friday after Hindenburg Research took a short position on the electric-pickup-truck maker’s stock.

“Lordstown is an electric vehicle SPAC with no revenue and no sellable product, which we believe has misled investors on both its demand and production capabilities,” Hindenburg said.

Lordstown said in January it had received more than 100,000 non-binding production reservations from commercial fleets for its electric truck.

“Our conversations with former employees, business partners and an extensive document review show that the company’s orders are largely fictitious and used as a prop to raise capital and confer legitimacy,” Hindenburg said on Friday.

Steve Burns, CEO of Lordstown, said in a text message to Bloomberg that “we always stated that pre-orders were non-binding. That is what pre-orders are.”

Burns denied the allegations made in Hindenburg’s report. Lordstown said it will provide a detailed response in coming days, probably at its March 17 earnings report, its first as a public company.

In response to an assertion made in the report that production is three to four years off, Burns said: “We are on track for betas this month and start of production in September. Any statement to the contrary is a lie.”

The short seller also took aim at Nikola Corp in September, accusing the electric-truck maker of fraud, leading to the resignation of its founder, Trevor Milton. Nikola had publicly rejected all accusations.

In February, however, Nikola disclosed that the company and Milton had made several statements that were partially or completely inaccurate, after an internal review.

Following Hindenburg’s accusations, General Motors and Nikola in November announced a reworked agreement on a fuel-cell partnership, allowing the automaker to back out of taking a proposed equity stake in the startup.

Lordstown‘s shares closed down 16.5% at $14.78.