Why would you build a fake prototype of an electric truck that actually has no motor, roll it down a hill, post a video of it, and claim it’s running under its own power? Because then you could take your company public and watch investment dollars roll in. And if you’re Nikola founder Trevor Milton, you could cash out to the tune of millions.

In the bizarre and often slippery world of EV startups, Trevor Milton is the equivalent of an old timey snake oil salesman. He posted a 2016 video of his Nikola One cruising along a highway. Later, he appeared on stage with the same prototype and said, “This thing fully functions and works, which is really incredible.” But it didn’t. Investigators found the video camera had been carefully tilted to obscure the fact that the Nikola One was simply coasting downhill. The company later admitted that the prototype never worked.

Is this legal? Well the Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees Wall Street by preventing market manipulation, doesn’t think so. It opened an investigation. Even after Milton resigned, the SEC and DOJ leveled a civil suit which Nikola settled for $125 million. But that’s not all. Milton faced his own charges of defrauding the investors and lying about “nearly all aspects of the business.”

At Milton’s sentencing, the federal judge said, “Over the course of many months, you used your considerable social media skills to tout your company in ways that were materially false.” He ordered Milton to pay a $1 million fine and serve four years in prison.

Nikola founder Trevor Milton granted presidential pardon by Donald Trump

Milton then funneled $1.8 million into President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign fund. President Trump pardoned Milton on Friday, March 28th. The President said of Milton, “I didn’t know him” but concluded that Milton, “did nothing wrong.”

Milton responded that he is grateful to President Trump, “for granting me this sacred pardon of innocence.”

Milton founded Nikola Motor Company in 2014. Its main focus was heavy-duty commercial vehicles, and over the years it considered various fully electric and hydrogen fuel cell electric powertrains. It delivered its first two fully electric semi trucks in late 2021 for the Port of Los Angeles to use for local deliveries. It delivered at least 209 of them by the end of 2023, as evidenced by a 209-truck recall for battery pack fires. The company paused production while trying to sort out its battery pack fire issue and never re-started it. Nikola claimed it delivered 112 hydrogen fuel cell electric trucks in 2024. But in February 2025, Nikolai Corporation filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. You can see CNBC’s coverage of Nikola in the video embedded below: