Trevor Milton, the founder of bankrupt hydrogen trucking startup Nikola who was convicted of fraud, has been pardoned by President Trump, the White House confirmed to TechCrunch.
Milton was convicted in October 2022 of one count of securities fraud and two counts of wire fraud related to claims he made about Nikola’s progress to investors. He was sentenced to four years in prison in December 2023. He has been out on a $100 million bond while he appealed that sentence.
The pardon comes just a few weeks after Nikola filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company has been working with the bankruptcy court in Delaware to try to sell the business, and had hoped to close such a deal by mid-April.
“It is no wonder why trust and confidence in the Justice Department has eroded to nothing. I wish judges would stop believing whatever the prosecutors feed them so Americans could trust the justice system again,” Milton said in a statement.
Milton was convicted by a jury. He was represented in that trial by Brad Bondi, a partner at law firm Paul Hastings and the brother of current U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Now a free man, Milton has said he plans to release a documentary that he believes will tell his side of the Nikola story.
Milton founded Nikola in 2014. The company didn’t enter the spotlight until 2020, when it became one of the first electric vehicle companies to go public by merging with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). It quickly became a hotly traded stock, especially after General Motors announced a $2 billion stake in September of that year.
The company’s circumstances quickly changed, though. Just days after GM’s announcement, short-selling research firm Hindenburg Research published a report containing allegations of fraud perpetrated by Milton. The Securities and Exchange Commission opened an investigation, and GM walked away from the deal. Milton ultimately resigned, although during his sentencing hearing in 2023 he claimed he stepped down to help his ailing wife.
Prosecutors from the Southern District of New York charged Milton in July 2021, claiming that he had made “false and misleading statements regarding Nikola’s product and technology development,” on social media and in TV, print, and podcast interviews. They said Milton made these claims in order to “induce retail investors to purchase Nikola stock.”
After he was convicted, a judge ordered Milton to pay his former company nearly $168 million following an arbitration case between the two sides. That money was supposed to factor into Nikola’s bankruptcy case. Nikola planned to use those proceeds to settle a class action lawsuit against the company filed by shareholders.
