Trevor Milton, a major Republican donor who was convicted by a federal jury in 2022 of defrauding investors in the electric truck maker Nikola, has received a pardon from President Trump, the White House said on Friday.
Mr. Milton, Nikola’s founder and former chief executive, was sentenced to four years in prison and fined $1 million after a New York jury convicted him of one count of securities fraud and two counts of wire fraud. He has been free on bail while he appealed the conviction.
In addition to sparing Mr. Milton time in prison, the pardon means he will not be required to comply with a court order to compensate shareholders in Nikola, who lost tens of millions of dollars after Nikola’s share price collapsed. He still faces a class-action lawsuit filed by shareholders.
Mr. Milton was accused of pumping up the value of Nikola stock by making extravagant claims about the company, including that it had working prototypes of emissions-free long-haul trucks, had billions of dollars’ worth of binding orders and was producing low-cost hydrogen fuel. Those statements were false, prosecutors argued during the trial.
Mr. Milton has maintained that he did nothing wrong, and his lawyers argued that he was just overenthusiastic about the prospects of his company.
Nikola operated under new management after Mr. Milton resigned in 2020 following a report by the investment fund Hindenburg Research that accused him of making numerous false assertions. Among other things, Mr. Milton was accused of producing a video in which a truck was shown rolling down a hill, creating the impression the company had developed a working prototype.
The company was never able to build and sell enough trucks to become profitable and filed for bankruptcy protection in February. Nikola has said in court filings that it intends to sell many or all its assets.
When asked why he issued the pardon, Mr. Trump said on Friday that Mr. Milton had been “highly recommended” by many people and suggested that his prosecution had been political.
“They say the thing that he did wrong was he was one of the first people that supported a gentleman named Donald Trump for a president,” Mr. Trump said in the Oval Office. “He supported Trump. He liked Trump.”
“I had these fantastic recommendations about him from people that you know very well, all top-of-the-line people,” Mr. Trump said. “They thought it was a horrible thing.”
Since 2016, Mr. Milton has contributed $2.85 million to a long list of conservative elected officials, political action committees and state Republican committees, according to federal campaign records.
That includes at least $930,000 donated to the Trump campaign or political action committees that have supported Mr. Trump’s candidacy, and $285,000 to the Republican National Committee, according to the records.
Mr. Milton also contributed $750,000 to the MAHA Alliance, a political action committee that tried to persuade supporters of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to back Mr. Trump after Mr. Kennedy dropped out of the presidential race. Mr. Milton contributed $121,000 directly to Mr. Kennedy’s campaign in September, after it was suspended, the records show.
Mr. Kennedy was later appointed secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
Brad Bondi, a member of Mr. Milton’s defense team during the trial, is the brother of Attorney General Pam Bondi. Mr. Bondi and the Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment.
The U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, which handled the case against Mr. Milton, declined to comment.
Mr. Milton celebrated the pardon in a video he filmed while driving a car and posted on X. “I am free. The prosecutors can no longer hurt me,” he said.
Tyler Pager and Matthew Goldstein contributed reporting.
