Trevor Milton, Nikola electric semitrucks founder convicted of fraud, pardoned by Trump

President Donald Trump has pardoned the founder of the embattled electric semitruck company Nikola.

Trevor Milton was sentenced to prison last year for fraud after the Arizona-based company was found to have exaggerated claims of its truck’s capabilities to investors.

Milton had not yet been incarcerated pending an appeal.

Now his pardon could wipe out hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution prosecutors were seeking for defrauded investors.

According to the Federal Election Commission, Milton and his wife donated nearly $2 million to a Trump re-election campaign fund last year.

Trump suggested Friday that Milton was prosecuted because he supported the president.

"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.

The White House confirmed the pardon Friday, though there was no notice of a pardon on the White House website.

When asked by a reporter in a news conference Friday why he pardoned Milton, Trump said it was “highly recommended by many people.”

Trump went on to say that Milton “did nothing wrong” and that the Southern District of New York's prosecutors were “a vicious group of people.”

During his securities fraud case, Milton was defended by two lawyers with connections to Trump: Marc Mukasey, who has represented the Trump Organization; and Brad Bondi, the brother of Pam Bondi, who Trump appointed as U.S. Attorney General.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The company paid $125 million in 2021 to settle a civil case against it by the SEC. Nikola didn’t admit any wrongdoing.

The U.S. District Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, which prosecuted the case, declined to comment on Milton’s pardon.

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.”