Trevor Milton, founder of electric truck company Nikola, has been pardoned by President Donald Trump after being sentenced to four years in prison for defrauding investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars.
On Friday, March 28, Milton announced in an Instagram post that Trump would issue him a pardon more than two years after he was found guilty of fraud charges related to false claims about Nikola’s technology. Investors lost hundreds of millions of dollars as a result.
In July 2021, the federal government filed a criminal and civil complaint against Milton, accusing the Nikola founder of lying to investors about the capabilities of fuel cell and battery electric trucks. During an unveiling in 2016, Milton claimed the Nikola One “fully functions and works” despite the truck having never been tested or completed. In 2018, the company posted a video of fuel cell electric truck driving down a highway. However, the truck was actually towed up a hill, with the video footage showing it rolling down the hill.
Milton’s downward spiral began in September 2020, when investment research firm Hindenburg Research released a scathing report revealing damaging revelations of widespread lies and fraud. Within two weeks, Milton stepped down as CEO at Nikola after the company’s stock price took a nosedive.
A few months after the lawsuits were filed, Nikola settled with the SEC for $125 million. The company said it expected Milton to foot the bill.
Last September, a federal court in Arizona ordered Milton to pay the company $168 million for the SEC fine and legal expenses.
In October 2022, a jury found Milton guilty of three of four fraud charges in the criminal case. He was sentenced to four years in prison in December 2023. Milton has not served any of that time due to post-trial litigation. The SEC civil case against Milton was put on hold pending the resolution of the criminal case.
There is still an ongoing civil lawsuit against Milton that was filed by Nikola investors in September 2020, just days after the Hindenburg report and nearly a year before the government lawsuits were filed. Milton is the only remaining defendant in the case, after all other defendants, including Nikola, were ordered on March 17 to be dismissed. It is not clear how Trump’s pardon could affect the investors’ lawsuit.
Close ties to Trump
During a news conference on Friday, March 28, Trump confirmed the pardon, explaining it came “highly recommended by many people.” Although Trump and Milton do not know each other directly, the two have close ties to one another.
“They say the thing he did wrong was he was one of the first people that supported a gentleman named Donald Trump for president,” Trump said.
One of the attorneys representing Milton in the lawsuits is Brad Bondi, the brother of Attorney General Pam Bondi. Milton is also represented by Marc Mukasey, who represented the Trump Organization in a criminal investigation brought on by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. Mukasey is the son of Michael Mukasey, who served as attorney general under George W. Bush and was also a law partner of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
In the final month before the 2024 presidential election, Milton and his wife donated more than $3 million to Republican campaigns, including nearly $2 million to a single Trump re-election campaign.
Trump said that Milton “did nothing wrong.” LL
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