Trevor Milton Net Worth

What is Trevor Milton's net worth?

Trevor Milton is an American entrepreneur who has a net worth of $250 million. Trevor Milton is best known for being the co-founder of Nikola Motor, an electric and hydrogen truck start-up once hailed as the "next Tesla." At the height of his fame and success, Trevor was frequently compared to Elon Musk. A week after going public via SPAC in June 2020, Nikola's market cap reached $30 billion. At that point, Trevor's paper net worth was just under $12 billion. That made him one of the richest people in America and briefly placed Nikola's valuation above Ford, despite the company having virtually no revenue and no commercial vehicles in production. As we detail throughout this article, Trevor eventually was forced to resign from the article and was eventually charged with securities and wire fraud. And while Nikola's stock price collapsed and the company eventually filed for bankruptcy in February 2025, over the years, Trevor sold an estimated $400 million worth of his shares.

Milton built his career on bold promises and relentless salesmanship. After dropping out of college, he launched a series of small businesses, including an alarm sales company and a used car marketplace, before shifting his focus to alternative energy vehicles with his company dHybrid. In 2015, he founded Nikola, positioning it as a pioneer in the zero-emission trucking industry. Investors flocked to the concept, and Milton cultivated a reputation as an ambitious visionary frequently compared to Elon Musk. His aggressive promotion of Nikola's capabilities and technology, however, soon drew skepticism and eventually attracted the attention of short-sellers and regulators.

In September 2020, Milton resigned from Nikola after reports alleged that he had misled investors about the company's progress, including a marketing video that showed a truck appearing to drive under its own power when it was actually rolling downhill. Federal prosecutors later charged him with securities and wire fraud, and in October 2022, he was convicted on three counts. He was sentenced to four years in prison in December 2023, though he remained free on bond while appealing. In 2025, he received a presidential pardon from Donald Trump, wiping away the conviction but leaving his legacy as one of the most controversial figures of the clean-energy boom.

Early Life

Trevor Milton was born in 1982 and grew up in Utah in a large family. His father worked in construction, while his mother was a homemaker. Milton struggled academically and eventually dropped out of college, but he showed an entrepreneurial streak early on. His first business venture was an alarm sales company, which he exited for about $300,000. He then experimented with an online used car marketplace before turning his attention to alternative energy.

In 2009, Milton launched dHybrid, Inc., a company that retrofitted diesel engines with natural gas technology. Although the business never scaled, it gave him experience in the clean transportation sector and laid the groundwork for his most ambitious project: creating a next-generation trucking company built around hydrogen and electric power.

Nikola

In 2015, Trevor Milton founded Nikola Motor Company in Salt Lake City, Utah, naming the business after the same inventor who inspired Tesla. The company promised to revolutionize long-haul trucking with zero-emission hydrogen and electric-powered semis. Milton quickly attracted attention with bold presentations, flashy prototypes, and comparisons to Elon Musk. By 2018, Nikola had moved its operations to Phoenix, Arizona, and was pitching itself as the future of clean freight transport.

In June 2020, Nikola went public through a SPAC merger, a process that allowed it to list on the NASDAQ without the scrutiny of a traditional IPO. Investor excitement was extraordinary. Just one week after going public, Nikola's market cap surged to nearly $30 billion, briefly making it more valuable than Ford despite the company having virtually no revenue. At that time, Milton owned about 40% of the company, and his paper net worth peaked at nearly $12 billion. For a brief moment, he was wealthier on paper than some of the most established auto executives in the world.

The hype masked troubling fundamentals. Nikola disclosed that its revenue for the second quarter of 2020 was just $36,000 — all of it from installing solar panels at one of Milton's personal homes. Meanwhile, Milton was busy making sweeping claims about Nikola's technology, including suggesting the company had developed its own proprietary batteries and fully functional trucks. These statements, combined with a slick promotional video of a Nikola truck "driving" under its own power, helped fuel the company's sky-high valuation.

(Photo by Isaac Sloan/Nikola Motor/TNS/ABACAPRESS.COM via Alamy)

Resignation

Trevor Milton's downfall began in September 2020, just months after Nikola's blockbuster public debut. A report by short-selling firm Hindenburg Research accused him of repeatedly misleading investors about Nikola's technology. The most damaging allegation centered on a promotional video that appeared to show a Nikola truck driving on its own power. In reality, the truck had no functioning drivetrain and was simply rolling downhill. The report also raised questions about whether Nikola had exaggerated its ability to develop in-house battery technology and hydrogen production systems.

The fallout was immediate. Facing mounting pressure from investors and regulators, Milton resigned as executive chairman of Nikola later that month. As part of his resignation agreement, he forfeited $166 million worth of equity and a two-year consulting contract worth $20 million. However, he was allowed to retain approximately 92 million shares of the company, which at the time were worth more than $3 billion.

Over the years, Milton sold at least $400 million worth of Nikola shares. He reportedly sold $300 million worth of shares in the years following his resignation.

Fraud Conviction

In July 2021, federal prosecutors indicted Trevor Milton on charges of securities fraud and wire fraud. The indictment alleged that Milton had deliberately misled investors through public statements, social media posts, and interviews about Nikola's technology and progress. Among the claims prosecutors highlighted were false assertions that Nikola had built its own electric and hydrogen-powered pickup truck from scratch and had developed proprietary batteries, when in reality, much of the technology was sourced externally or still in development.

Milton pled not guilty and was released after posting a $100 million bail bond. His trial began in 2022 in the Southern District of New York, where prosecutors painted him as a serial exaggerator who crossed the line into outright fraud. In October 2022, he was found guilty on three counts: two of wire fraud and one of securities fraud. Two months later, in December 2023, he was sentenced to four years in federal prison. Prosecutors had sought more than a decade behind bars, but the judge cited mitigating factors, including Milton's lack of prior convictions. He remained free on bond while appealing the case.

Presidential Pardon

In March 2025, Trevor Milton received a full and unconditional pardon from President Donald Trump, just months after beginning his second term in office. The pardon wiped away Milton's conviction and nullified the four-year prison sentence he had been appealing. It also raised the possibility of canceling hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution payments prosecutors had sought on behalf of investors who lost money in Nikola's collapse.

The pardon was controversial, in part because Milton and his wife had donated more than $1.8 million to a Trump re-election fund in the weeks before the 2020 election. Trump defended the move by claiming Milton had been unfairly targeted for supporting him politically. Milton celebrated the decision publicly, calling it a "sacred pardon of innocence" and expressing gratitude to Trump for "standing up for what is right."

While the presidential action restored Milton's legal standing, it did not erase the reputational damage from his fraud conviction. Nikola itself had already filed for bankruptcy in February 2025, and its creditors continued to pursue claims against him in bankruptcy court. Even with his conviction vacated, Milton's legacy remains deeply divisive, emblematic of both the hype-driven excesses and the high-profile failures of the electric vehicle boom.

Real Estate

In 2019, he paid $32.5 million for a 2,670-acre ranch in Utah. It set the record for the most expensive home purchased in Utah's history. The 8-bedroom home has a 17,000 square-foot riverfront mansion and a helipad. Here is a video tour of the Milton ranch in Utah:

Gulfstream Jet

At the height of his success, Trevor bought a $6 million Gulfstream private jet. The seller was a Nikola board member. Trevor paid for the jet with $6 million worth of his Nikola shares. He subsequently bought two additional planes.

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