President Trump pardoned Nikola founder Trevor Milton, foreclosing restitution sought for defrauded investors

On March 27, 2025, President Donald Trump pardoned Trevor Milton, the founder of electric- and hydrogen-truck maker Nikola, who had been convicted by a jury in 2022 of securities and wire fraud for exaggerating his company's technology to investors — including using a video of a nonfunctioning prototype truck rolled down a hill to make it appear to drive under its own power. Milton had been sentenced in December 2023 to four years in prison but remained free pending an appeal. According to FEC records, Milton and his wife had donated more than $1.8 million to a Trump reelection fund less than a month before the 2024 election.

The pardon came roughly two weeks after federal prosecutors urged the court to order Milton to pay about $680 million in restitution to Nikola shareholders and $15.2 million to another victim of his fraud; because of the pardon, the court could no longer impose restitution. At a news conference, Trump said Milton "did nothing wrong," described the Manhattan prosecutors who charged him as "a vicious group of people," and said Milton had been prosecuted because he "was one of the first people that supported" Trump for president.