The SEC has dropped civil enforcement cases this week against many of the people pardoned by President Donald Trump, according to the New York Times. One of those cases was against Trevor Milton, the founder of the now-defunct electric and hydrogen vehicle company Nikola, who was sentenced to prison for fraud in late 2023.
Milton was convicted in 2022 of lying to investors about the capabilities of the technology his company was developing and sentenced to four years in prison. Milton infamously produced a video in 2016 showing a Nikola truck prototype that his company said was being driven down a highway. In reality, the truck was shot at a weird angle and was actually towed up a hill before being sent rolling down to make it look like the vehicle was moving under its own power.
Milton, who was estimated by Forbes to be worth $1.1 billion in 2021, was convicted of defrauding investors, and the U.S. Department of Justice wanted to secure over $660 million in restitution for his victims. But Trump’s pardon wiped out that monumental sum. And this week, the SEC dropped any chance of the government recouping money from civil penalties. It’s unclear how much money the SEC may have been pursuing from Milton.
Back in May, Gizmodo spoke with Liz Oyer, the DOJ pardon attorney who was fired for refusing to reinstate Mel Gibson’s gun rights under political pressure from Trump appointees. She noted that the DOJ has a whole set of guidelines that lay out the criteria for recommending pardons. The guidelines state that people shouldn’t even be considered for a pardon until they’ve served their sentence and five years have passed. Trump’s pardons haven’t followed that process at all.
“So historically, pardons are generally viewed as something that go to people who have served their sentence, paid their debt, demonstrated rehabilitation and good conduct in the time that has elapsed. And those criteria are all absent in every one of the pardons that Trump has granted to date,” Oyer said back in May.
Why aren’t the regular rules being followed? Oyer points out that Milton and his wife donated $1.8 million to a re-election campaign fund for Trump shortly before the 2024 presidential election. And as the New York Times notes, Milton also hired attorney Brad Bondi, the brother of Attorney General Pam Bondi, though he previously said he recused himself from the case.
Oyer did a TikTok video about Milton’s case explaining what a good investment that $1.8 million turned out to be. According to Oyer, more than $1 billion in total debts have been wiped out by Trump’s many pardons.
Trump claimed earlier this year that Milton’s only crime was liking Trump too much.
“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 supported Trump. He liked Trump. I didn’t know him, but he liked him,” Trump said after the pardon. Yes, that’s the quote.
Needless to say, Milton was not convicted for liking Trump. He was convicted of defrauding hundreds of millions of dollars from his investors. An SEC spokesperson told Gizmodo the agency declines to comment on Milton’s case. Milton did not immediately respond to a request for comment. We’ll update this article when we hear back.