Trevor Milton, Nikola founder, pardoned by President Trump
Pres. Trump takes questions from Oval Office
Pres. Trump answered questions from media in the Oval Office on Friday, March 28, 2025. He was asked about pardoning Trevor Milton, the founder of Nikola.
Trevor Milton, the founder of electric vehicle start-up Nikola who was convicted of fraud and sentenced to prison last year, was pardoned by President Donald Trump.
Trump and the White House confirmed the pardon Friday.
"I am incredibly grateful to President Trump for his courage in standing up for what is right and for granting me this sacred pardon of innocence," Milton said.
Who is Trevor Milton?
The backstory:
Milton, convicted of fraud, was portrayed by prosecutors as a con man six years after he had founded the company in a basement in Utah.
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Nikola, which was a hot start-up and rising star on Wall Street before becoming enmeshed in scandal, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February.
Prosecutors said Milton falsely claimed to have built its own revolutionary truck that was actually a General Motors product with Nikola’s logo stamped onto it.
Trevor Milton, founder of Nikola Corp., exits court in New York, US, on Monday, Dec. 18, 2023. Photographer: Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images
At Milton's trial, prosecutors say a company video of a prototype truck appearing to be driven down a desert highway was actually a video of a nonfunctioning Nikola that had been rolled down a hill.
Called as a government witness, Nikola’s CEO testified that Milton "was prone to exaggeration" when pitching his venture to investors.
Milton resigned in 2020 amid reports of fraud that sent Nikola’s stock prices into a tailspin. Investors suffered heavy losses as reports questioned Milton’s claims that the company had already produced zero-emission 18-wheel trucks.
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The company paid $125 million in 2021 to settle a civil case against it by the SEC. Nikola didn’t admit any wrongdoing.
Milton was sentenced to four years in prison for exaggerating the potential of his technology. He had not been incarcerated pending an appeal.
Why did Trump pardon Trevor Milton?
Milton and his wife donated more than $1.8 million to a Trump re-election campaign fund less than a month before the November election, according to the Federal Election Commission.
What they're saying:
"They say it was very unfair, and they say the thing that he did wrong was he was one of the first people that supported a gentleman named Donald Trump for president," Trump said when asked about the pardon Friday. "He supported Trump. He liked Trump. I didn't know him, but he liked him. It was in Utah. And they went after him. They went after his family. They went after his businesses. And, he was, I believe, exonerated. And then they went after him again and they brought him this time into Manhattan. And he had nothing to do with Manhattan. And they got him. And I said, that's unfair. There are many people like that. They support Trump, and they went after him."
The other side:
The pardon of Milton, who could wipe out hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution that prosecutors were seeking for defrauded investors.
A voicemail left by The Associated Press with the U.S. District Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, which prosecuted the case, was not immediately returned.
At the time of his conviction U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said, "Trevor Milton lied to investors again and again — on social media, on television, on podcasts, and in print. But today’s sentence should be a warning to start-up founders and corporate executives everywhere — ‘fake it till you make it’ is not an excuse for fraud, and if you mislead your investors, you will pay a stiff price."
Trump’s other pardons
Trump pardons ex-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich
FOX 32 Chicago's Paris Schutz joins LiveNOW's Andrew Craft to discuss President Trump's pardon of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.
Dig deeper:
Trump wasted little time in using his pardon power since beginning his second term. Hours after taking office, he wiped clean the records of roughly 1,500 people who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. The next day, Trump announced that he had pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road, an underground website for selling drugs.
Ulbricht had been sentenced to life in prison in 2015 after a high-profile prosecution that highlighted the role of the internet in illegal markets.
The Source: This report includes information from The Associated Press and comments made by President Donald Trump.