Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free
Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world
Trevor Milton, the founder of electric-truck maker Nikola who was found guilty in 2022 of lying to investors, has been pardoned by US President Donald Trump.
Milton wrote on X: “I was issued a full and unconditional pardon by @realDonaldTrump himself. He called me personally to tell me.”
Milton was sentenced to four years in prison in December 2023 for misleading investors about the readiness of Nikola’s technology in order to boost its share price.
Two White House officials confirmed the pardon on Friday. Brad Bondi, Milton’s lawyer and brother of US attorney-general Pam Bondi, could not immediately be reached for comment.
Milton said on X: “This pardon is not just about me — it’s about every American who has been railroaded by the government . . . It is no wonder why trust and confidence in the Justice Department has eroded to nothing.”
Nikola was once valued at almost $30bn but it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February after its cash balance had dwindled to $47mn.
The company benefited from the special purpose acquisition company boom, when businesses — sometimes with no revenue or products — listed on public markets and drew huge retail investor interest.
Its rally was quickly brought to a halt by short seller Hindenburg Research, which in September 2020 released a report calling it “an intricate fraud”.
Milton donated about $2mn to Pacs supporting Trump in the 2024 presidential election. In previous presidential and congressional races, he gave less than $20,000.
During a five-week trial in 2023, Milton’s lawyers argued he should not go to prison, saying he “sees the world differently than most other people”. They also asked the judge to “resist any temptation” to compare his actions with Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, who was convicted for fraud and is serving an 11-year prison sentence.
In the trial, prosecutors called Milton “a conman” who used his gains from Nikola to buy property in the Caribbean and a private jet.
A press statement issued by Trevor Milton Media on Thursday highlighted the “striking similarities” between the fraud case brought against the Nikola founder and that of Trump, who was found guilty of conspiring to buy the silence of a porn actor before the 2016 election and falsifying business records.
It said Milton would now focus on a documentary about his life called Conviction or Conspiracy: The Trevor Milton Saga, which “invites audiences to revisit one of the most controversial stories in modern business history”.
Since becoming president, Trump has also pardoned Ross Ulbricht, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2015 for masterminding an online marketplace for illegal drugs and online hacking. Earlier this week, he pardoned Devon Archer, a financier and former business associate of Hunter Biden.
On his first day in office, Trump also signed an executive order to pardon about 1,500 people charged in relation to the attack on the US Capitol on January 6 2021.
Additional reporting by Alex Rogers in Washington and Antoine Gara in New York
