Latest Update: Trevor Milton & Career Highlights Net Worth 2026: Career Earnings & Assets

Many fans are curious about Trevor Milton's financial success in April 2026. Our team analyzed the latest data to provide a clear picture of their income.

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 ofNikolaMotor, 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 toElon 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 fromDonald Trump, wiping away the conviction but leaving his legacy as one of the most controversial figures of the clean-energy boom.

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 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 papernet 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.

Ultimately, Trevor Milton's financial journey is a testament to their success.

Disclaimer: All net worth figures are estimates based on public data.