President Donald Trump has pardoned Nikola Corporation founder Trevor Milton, a one-time rival of Elon Musk. Musk "previously ridiculed Nikola’s technology, calling it 'staggeringly dumb” and tweeting, 'fuel cells = fool sells,'" according to the New York Post.

Milton was convicted back in 2022 of federal crimes relating to the defrauding of various investors. 

He was sentenced to four years behind bars after his conviction, however, President Donald Trump was willing to give Milton another chance.

Trump supports Milton

“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,” President Trump began in his statement about Milton.

“He supported Trump. He liked Trump. I didn’t know him, but he liked [me].”

“It was in Utah, and they went after him. They went after his family, they went after his businesses, and he was, I believe, exonerated, and then they went after him again, and they brought him this time into Manhattan,” Trump added.

“They got him. And I said, ‘That’s unfair.’ There are many people like that.”

“They supported Trump, and they went after them,” he continued, pointing out that while Milton did a “bad thing” the real reason behind his conviction could be due to the fact the he supported Trump.

“You don’t realize this is a vicious group of people that were in this office before us. This is a vicious group. They’re violent … “

“They went after this man, and when I heard about it, I said, ‘Nope, it’s not going to happen.’ They persecuted, they destroyed five years of his life … and he did nothing wrong, and he’s a good person,” the president went on.

The pardon from President Donald Trump came just weeks after prosecutors put pressure on District Court Judge Edgardo Ramos to take further action against Milton.

Prosecutors wanted Judge Ramos to order Milton to cough up $680 million dollars to the shareholders of Nikola and over $15 million dollars to Peter Hicks, someone who says he is a victim of Milton’s fraud crimes.

Thanks to the pardon from President Donald Trump, Ramos will no longer be able to move forward with any further orders against Milton.

Milton celebrates

When Milton learned of the news, he took to the popular social media platform, Instagram, where he shared the news with his followers.

He called the day he learned of his pardon the “best day” he had “had in five years.”

“I just got a call from the president of the United States, on my phone, and he signed my full and unconditional pardon of innocence,” Milton said. “I am free. The prosecutors can no longer hurt me. They can’t destroy my family, they can’t rip everything away from me, they can’t ruin my life."