Trump Pardons Nikola Founder Convicted Of Defrauding Investors With Promotional Video Of Non-Operational Truck Rolling Down A Hill, Resolves Long-Standing Concern That $1.8 Million In Trump-Aligned PAC Donations Had Yet To Produce Federal Sentencing Benefit

The Filing

WASHINGTON. President Donald J. Trump on Friday issued a full and unconditional pardon to Trevor Milton, the founder of electric truck startup Nikola Corporation, who had been convicted by a Manhattan federal jury of securities and wire fraud and was awaiting the start of a four-year federal prison sentence at the time of his clemency.

The pardon, announced in a brief written statement, resolves a long-standing anomaly in which an entrepreneur who personally donated approximately $1.8 million to Trump-aligned political committees in the months following his conviction was nevertheless expected to report to federal prison without first having those contributions credited against his sentence.

Milton's 2022 conviction stemmed in part from a Nikola promotional video released in 2018 in which the company's flagship hydrogen-electric semi-truck, the Nikola One, appeared to drive itself across a stretch of Utah desert. Federal prosecutors established at trial that the vehicle was in fact non-operational, that Nikola engineers had towed it to the top of a hill, and that the truck was filmed rolling downward under the influence of gravity, the only motive force then available to it. Investors who purchased Nikola stock at its 2020 peak valuation of more than $30 billion subsequently lost an estimated $660 million when the company's actual technological position became clear.

The pardon was issued before Milton had served any portion of his sentence, over the objection of the career federal prosecutors who had secured the conviction. Milton had remained free on bail pending the resolution of appeals he is now no longer required to pursue.

"Trevor Milton was treated very unfairly by people who do not understand business," an administration official said in a statement, declining to specify which aspect of the prosecution had been business-illiterate.

At press time, several thousand Americans incarcerated for federal financial crimes unaccompanied by post-conviction donations to Trump-aligned political committees remained in custody.

Who Benefits

§Donald J. Trump personally, who received approximately $1.8 million in donations to Trump-aligned political action committees from Milton and his family in the months between Milton's October 2022 conviction and his March 2025 pardon.
§Trevor Milton, who avoided service of a four-year federal prison sentence for securities and wire fraud he had not yet begun serving.
§The Trump Organization, whose proximity to a presidential transaction of this character remains useful for foreign and domestic business development.
§Other holders of significant criminal exposure with the financial means to make substantial political donations, who received a public demonstration of the available exchange rate.
§Trump-aligned super PACs, whose fundraising case to high-net-worth donors with active federal cases received a publicly visible validation.
§The conservative legal movement, which now possesses an additional precedent for the proposition that the pardon power is functionally unreviewable.
§Other former Nikola executives and board members during the period of the fraud, who now enjoy a presidentially endorsed framework in which the underlying conduct was overstated by the Justice Department.
§The U.S. white-collar criminal defense bar, which has gained a new strategic option to discuss with clients in the early stages of federal prosecution.

Sourced to the public record · presented without editorial embellishment