Trevor Milton, the convicted founder of electric- and hydrogen-powered truck maker Nikola, was sentenced to four years in prison on Monday after a jury last year found him guilty of lying to investors about the company’s technology.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan said Milton misled investors by stating that Nikola had built a pickup from the “ground up,” that it had developed its own batteries even though he knew it was buying them, and that it had early success creating a “Nikola One” semi-truck that he knew did not work.

US District Judge Edgar Ramos handed down the sentence at a hearing in federal court in Manhattan.

Prosecutors last week urged Ramos to sentence Milton, 41, to around 11 years in prison – in line with the sentence Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes received last year after being found guilty of defrauding investors in her blood testing startup.

Milton’s lawyers said he should get probation, arguing that any misstatements resulted from his “deeply-held optimism” in his Phoenix-based company and that Holmes’ case was different because her lies put people at medical risk.

Milton made the statements about Nikola using social media and in podcast and television interviews as it joined the growing number of tech and electric vehicle companies going public through special purpose acquisition vehicles, or SPACs.

Prosecutors said he was seeking to inflate the company’s stock price and his own net worth.

Milton was convicted in October 2022 on one count of securities fraud and two counts of wire fraud, and acquitted on an additional securities fraud count.

Nikola in 2021 agreed to pay $125 million to settle civil charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company’s shares now trade for less than $1, down from a peak of higher than $60 in June 2020.