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 electric truck maker, Nikola. 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. For a brief moment in 2020, Nikola was more valuable than Ford.
Trevor resigned from the company in September 2020 amid allegations of investor fraud. Trevor continues town around 20% of the company. When he agreed to step down, he agreed to not vote his shares against the board of directors for a minimum of three years. To date, Trevor has sold $400 million worth of Nikola stock.
In October 2022 Trevor was found guilty on three criminal fraud counts, including securities fraud. In December 2023 Trevor was sentenced to serve four years in federal prison. He has appealed the decision and remains free on bond as of this writing.
Early Life
Milton dropped out of college to pursue his sales and marketing career. He started an alarm sales company before exiting the business for $300 thousand. He then launched an online used car business before starting alternative energy vehicle company dHybrid, Inc.
Nikola
Trevor Milton founded Nikola Motor Company in 2015, originally in Utah but eventually moved operations to Phoenix. He took the company public through a reverse IPO SPAC merger (when a non-public company acquires a public company), in June 2020. During the SPAC process, Trevor sold $90 million worth of his shares.
One week after going public, Nikola was valued at nearly $30 billion. The company, which had negligible revenue, was briefly worth more than Ford, despite the fact that it had never produced a single car. In fact, the company disclosed that it's entire quarterly revenue in the second quarter of 2020 was just $36,000 and all of that was a fee earned from installing solar panels at one of Trevor Milton's personal homes.
As owner of 40% of the company's equity, Trevor's net worth peaked at nearly $12 billion. In later years his equity stake was reduced to 20% by mid-2022. At that point he was still the company's largest individual shareholder. As we stated previously, to date Trevor has sold $400 million worth of Nikola shares.
Real Estate
In 2019 he paid $32.5 million for a 2,670-acre ranch in Utah. It set the record for 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 to additional planes.
Resignation
Trevor resigned from Nikola in 2020 in the wake of fraud allegations. One allegation alleged that in a marketing video used to entice investors years earlier showed a Nikola truck driving on its own power with an electric engine. It was later revealed that the truck was actually rolling downhill with no power at all. Around the same time one of Milton's female cousins accused him of inappropriately touching her when she was 15 and he was 18. Milton denied the allegation.
When Trevor agreed to resign, he agreed to forfeit $166 million worth of equity and a two-year, $20 million consulting contract. He was however allowed to keep roughly 92 million company shares which at the time of his resignation were worth more than $3 billion. Had he held on to all of those shares, today hey would be worth around $275 million. He did not hold on to all of those shares. In the years since his resignation Trevor sold at least $300 million worth of shares on the public markets.
Fraud Conviction
In July 2021 Trevor was indicted on charges of securities and wire fraud. He pled not guilty and was released after posting a $100 million bail bond. In October 2022 he was found guilty on two counts of wire fraud and one count of securities fraud. In December 2023 he was sentenced to serve four years in federal prison. Prosecutors had been seeking 11 years.
