Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday defended his decision to pardon Trevor Milton, the founder of now-bankrupt electric vehicle startup Nikola Corp., who was convicted in 2022 of defrauding investors.
Speaking at a press conference, Trump said Milton’s clemency had been “highly recommended by many people that was taken advantage of,” adding, “it was very unfair.”
Milton disclosed late Thursday that Trump had called him to inform him he had received a presidential pardon. He was sentenced in December 2023 to four years in prison after being found guilty of two counts of wire fraud and one count of securities fraud.
Trump said Milton had “did a business deal, like in Utah, as I have it. I think he was exonerated and then they brought him to New York, where he had a rough, rough road. He was exonerated. It was a big celebration.”
The former Nikola executive stepped down in 2020, shortly after the company announced a $2 billion partnership with General Motors. His resignation followed a report by short-seller Hindenburg Research, which alleged Milton repeatedly misled investors and staged a promotional video showing a non-functional truck rolling downhill to appear operational.
Trump said he had no personal connection to Milton but pointed to his early political support. “Again, I don’t know him, but I was… they say it was very unfair. And 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,” he said.
The president criticized the investigation and prosecution, claiming Milton was unjustly targeted across multiple jurisdictions. “It was in Utah. And they went after him. They went after his family. They went after his businesses. And he was, I believe, exonerated. And then they went after him again. And they brought him this time into Manhattan. And he had nothing to do with Manhattan. And they got him,” Trump said.
“I said, that’s unfair. There are many people like that. They support Trump and they went after him,” he added.
“You don’t realize this is a vicious group of people that were in this office before us. This is a vicious group. They are violent,” Trump continued. “What they were doing to people. And you could go story after.. hundreds and even thousands of stories. And they went after this man.”
“And when I heard about it, I said, no, not going to happen. They persecuted… They destroyed five years of his life,” Trump said. “He went for it for five years of his life. And he did nothing wrong. And he’s a good person.”
“Basically, I had these fantastic recommendations about him from people that, you know, very well, all top of the line people. They thought it was a horrible thing. There were there are many such cases, by the way, many such cases,” he said.
Here’s the complete answer from Donald Trump.
On X, Nikola’s former chief wrote on Thursday he was “issued a full and unconditional pardon by Donald Trump himself” adding that the U.S. president called him “personally to tell me.”
“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 wrote in the X post.
Below is Milton’s full statement:
