Lordstown Founder Fined $175,000 For Inflated Order Numbers

Steve Burns claimed Lordstown received 100,000 orders from the commercial fleet for the Endurance electric truck – which is not the case.

The former CEO of Lordstown Motors, Steve Burns, has settled with the US Securities and Exchange Commission for statements he made about demand for the Endurance electric pickup truck.

Burns had been sued by the SEC in federal court in Washington for misrepresenting initial EV orders when he claimed the company had received 100,000 orders from commercial fleets. Last week, he settled the case and agreed to pay a $175,000 fine. He is also banned from serving as an officer or director of a public company for two years.

Lordstown was founded in 2018 and in late 2019, it took ownership of the former GM plant in Lordstown, Ohio. The company went public through a merger back in 2020 and later that year, even received support from then-President Donald Trump.

Read: Bankrupt Bosstown Faces $45 Million SEC Fine For Securities Violations

However, things began to unravel in March 2021 when analysts from short-selling research firm Hindenburg Research revealed that the automaker had misled investors and exaggerated the number of orders it had received.

It said that the thousands of orders claimed by the company were unnecessary and did not require a deposit. An internal investigation from Lordstown later found many of the orders it had received were from intermediaries who had agreed to find buyers, Reuters report.

Lordstown settled with the SEC last month for misleading investors about Endurance’s requirements.

Burns stepped down from his post at Lordstown in 2021 but his story with the company is far from over. In October 2023, Burns agreed to pay $10 million to buy the remaining assets of the automaker after it filed for bankruptcy in June. The purchase included all Lordstown machinery, hub motor assembly lines, battery module assembly lines, battery pack assembly lines, inventory and other machinery.