Trump pardons Nikola founder Trevor Milton

President Donald Trump pardoned Nikola Corp. founder Trevor Milton for his 2022 conviction of federal crimes related to defrauding investors with false claims about the success of the electric and hydrogen-powered truck maker.

Milton, 42, was sentenced in December 2023 to four years in prison, but he has been free since then pending an appeal of the former CEO’s criminal conviction on securities and wire fraud charges in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

The pardon came two weeks after federal prosecutors urged District Court Judge Edgardo Ramos to order Milton to pay restitution of $680 million to Nikola shareholders, and another $15.2 million to Peter Hicks, a victim of his wire fraud.

Because of the pardon, Ramos could not order restitution of any kind.

“Oh my gosh, oh, you won’t believe what just happened,” Milton said in an Instagram video posted on his personal account Thursday. “Probably the best day I’ve had in five years.”

“I just got a call from the president of the United States, on my phone, and he signed my full and unconditional pardon of innocence,” said Milton, who appeared to be driving a vehicle in the video.

“I am free. The prosecutors can no longer hurt me,” he said. “They can’t destroy my family, they can’t rip everything away from me, they can’t ruin my life.”

The White House confirmed the pardon.

Trump later Friday was asked why he granted Milton a pardon.

“I think he was exonerated,” Trump said told reporters at the White House. “And then they brought him into New York, he had a rough, rough road, and … he was exonerated. It was a big celebration. “

Milton was convicted at trial in October 2022.

“They say the thing that he did wrong was, he was one of the first people that supported a gentleman named Donald Trump for president,” Trump said. “He supported Trump. He liked Trump. I didn’t know him, but he liked him.”

Trump went on to say of Milton, “They persecuted, they destroyed five years of his life. He … fought for five years of his life, and he did nothing wrong.”

“And he’s a good person.”

Defense attorneys for Milton did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A spokesman for the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted Milton, declined to comment on the pardon.

The Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office, when it obtained an indictment against Milton in 2021, said some investors defrauded by his scheme “suffered tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses, including, in certain cases, the loss of their retirement savings or funds that they had borrowed to invest in Nikola.”

In a press release Thursday, Milton said, “This pardon is not just about me — it’s about every American who has been railroaded by the government, and unfortunately, that’s a lot of people.”

Milton said that there are “striking similarities” between his case “and those brought against President Trump.”

The president was charged in four criminal cases between his first and second terms in the White House.

After Trump was elected in November, the U.S. Justice Department sought the dismissal of the two federal cases, citing a department policy that bars the federal prosecution of sitting presidents.

Following Milton’s 2023 sentencing, the former Nikola CEO made significant political donations to Trump and his allies. This included $920,000 to the Trump 47 Committee in October of 2024, and $750,000 in September to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s MAHA Alliance political action committee.

Kennedy, a former independent presidential candidate in 2024, was recently confirmed as Trump’s secretary of Health and Human Services.

Federal campaign finance records indicate that 2024 was the first year Milton ever made six-figure political contributions.

As of midday Friday, there was no filing in Manhattan federal court or the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals indicating that the criminal case against Milton had been terminated due to a pardon.

However, it is not uncommon for notices of presidential pardons to be filed with the court several days after the pardons are issued.

“It is no wonder why trust and confidence in the Justice Department has eroded to nothing,” Milton said in the press release.

“I wish judges would stop believing whatever the prosecutors feed them so Americans could trust the justice system again,” he said. “Until that happens, our justice system will continue to erode until there is nothing left.”

Trump’s pardon of Milton, if confirmed, would erase his criminal conviction and the sentence, which included a $1 million fine.

Earlier this month, Trump pardoned former Tennessee state Sen. Brian Kelsey, who had just begun serving a 21-month prison term after pleading guilty in a federal campaign finance conspiracy case.

In that case, it took a week after Kelsey was released from prison for the notice of the pardon to be filed in federal court.

Earlier this week, Trump signed a full and unconditional pardon for Devon Archer, a one-time business partner of Hunter Biden, former President Joe Biden’s son.

Like Milton, Archer had also been convicted in a fraud case.

Right after his Jan. 20 inauguration, Trump notably pardoned around 1,500 people who were either charged or convicted of crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of the president’s supporters.

On his second day in office, Trump pardoned Ross Ulbricht, who was serving a life sentence for crimes related to his dark web marketplace Silk Road.

In February, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich received a presidential pardon. Blagojevich had served eight years in prison after he was convicted of attempting to sell the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama, after the first-term senator was elected president in 2008.

In February, Nikola filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.

The company said in a filing that it had liabilities of between $1 billion and $10 billion, and assets of between $500 million and $1 billion. It also sought court approval to pursue a sale of the business, saying it had about $47 million in cash on hand.

Nikola, which makes primarily all-electric and fuel cell electric semi-trucks, has struggled in recent years. The company had only sold 600 vehicles since 2022, as of its most recent third quarter.

As the company’s capital has shrunk, many of its trucks have been recalled as a result of defects. In its third-quarter conference call, the company warned investors it had enough cash to fund operations into the first quarter of 2025, but not beyond that.

The collapse of Nikola comes just five years after it hit a $30 billion market capitalization in 2020, exceeding that of Ford at the time.

The valuation was fueled by misleading statements by Milton, who was indicted in July 2021.

According to prosecutors, from November 2019 through September 2020 Milton induced non-professional investors to invest in Nikola “through false and misleading statements regarding Nikola’s product development … through social media and television, print, and podcast interviews.”

“Milton made false claims regarding nearly all aspects of Nikola’s business,” the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office said at the time of his indictment.

Those included false claims “that the company had early success in creating a ‘fully functioning’ semi-truck prototype known as the ‘Nikola One,’ when Milton knew the prototype was inoperable.”

The office also said Milton had made “false and misleading statements that Nikola had engineered and built an electric- and hydrogen-powered pickup truck known as ‘the Badger’ from the ‘ground up’ using Nikola’s parts and technology, when Milton knew that was not true.”

Last fall, a judge confirmed a nearly $168 million arbitration award against Milton for his misleading statements about Nikola.

— CNBC’s Eamon Javers contributed to this story.