Update (1030ET):
There was widespread speculation over whether President Trump had actually pardoned Trevor Milton, the former founder and CEO of the now-bankrupt Nikola.
But according to CNBC, citing a White House official, that now appears to be true.
Found the reason…
NEW: @nikolamotor founder Trevor Milton, just pardoned by Trump for fraud, donated over $2 million to Republicans between September and December of last year, per FEC records. His largest was $920K to the Trump 47 Committee.
He’d never previously made political donations. pic.twitter.com/ngvxFQLo61
— Ken Bensinger (@kenbensinger) March 28, 2025
Did anyone have “Trump pardons Trevor Milton” in their 2025 bingo card stack?
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Trevor Milton—founder and former CEO of the now-bankrupt Nikola—claimed on X late Thursday that President Trump had issued him a “full and unconditional pardon” and said the president “called me personally.”
Quick refresher on Milton: In 2023, a jury found him guilty of lying to investors about Nikola’s electric and fuel cell semi-truck technology and sentenced him to four years in prison.
Nikola was first exposed by short seller Nathan Anderson, founder of Hindenburg Research, after the startup released a 2020 promotional video, which showed its Nikola One truck rolling down a hill to simulate full functionality.
Last month, Nikola filed for Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code in the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. The defunct-startup also filed a motion seeking permission to pursue an auction and sale process under Section 363 of the US Bankruptcy Code.
Back to Milton, he wrote on X:
“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. It is no wonder why trust and confidence in the Justice Department has eroded to nothing… I saw firsthand the tactics they use to guarantee convictions. I am incredibly grateful to President Trump for his courage in standing up for what is right and for granting me this sacred pardon of innocence.”
Today I was issued a full and unconditional pardon by @realDonaldTrump himself. He called me 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. It is no wonder… pic.twitter.com/qpT0jjI6Fy
— Trevor Milton (@nikolatrevor) March 28, 2025
Milton’s video was immediately fact-checked by Community Notes, which pointed out that multiple U.S. government databases did not show evidence of a pardon.
“There is no mention of the pardon on the White House Website, or a Department of Justice catalog of presidential pardons.”
Separately, Milton’s media team released a press release through PR Newswire, declaring:
“Founder of Nikola Motor Company, Trevor Milton, Pardoned by President Trump.”
Here’s EV blog Electrek’s take on the situation:
So, despite us seeing no evidence yet that this pardon is actually real, maybe it’s an attempt to incept the idea of a pardon into the empty headcase of a vain ignoramus who for some reason has access to the pardon pen (despite there being a clear Constitutional remedy keeping insurrectionists like himself away from it).
It also seems quite similar to a proposed tactic by another corporate criminal, Sam Bankman-Fried. Fried had planned to “Go on Tucker Carlsen [sic], come out as a republican” in an attempt to angle for a pardon, again playing on the vanity, credulousness and love of fraud shown by the idiot-in-chief.
But then, in the last line of the press release, we get to what is perhaps the real point of this stunt – it ends with a link to a trailer for a documentary which purports to exonerate Milton. Kind of strange that someone would need to release a documentary making the case for exoneration when one has already been exonerated, isn’t it?
So, for these reasons, we think that this pardon didn’t actually happen.
. . .
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Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/28/2025 – 10:30
