Trevor Milton, the recently pardoned founder of bankrupt electric truckmaker Nikola, is resisting a subpoena from creditors seeking information about his finances, according to a new court filing.
The subpoena, issued April 1 by the official committee of unsecured creditors in Nikola’s bankruptcy case, aims to uncover details about Milton’s assets following his failure to pay an arbitration award of nearly $100 million owed to Nikola. The committee claims Milton has not fulfilled the debt, which stems from a 2023 arbitration ruling linked to his earlier criminal conviction.
Creditors allege Milton fraudulently moved tens of millions of dollars to avoid paying the award. In a previous lawsuit, Nikola accused him of “fraudulently transferring away tens of millions of dollars of his assets in order to hinder, delay, and defraud Nikola,” according to the filing.
Milton’s legal team has contested the subpoena for the past two months, asserting that the requested information is protected under a confidentiality order from a separate Arizona federal court case. The dispute is expected to be addressed during a court hearing scheduled for June 9.
Nikola filed for bankruptcy in February after years of financial and legal troubles. Most of its assets have been sold, including the leases on its Arizona factory and headquarters, which were acquired by Lucid Motors. An auction company purchased Nikola’s remaining fleet of hydrogen-powered trucks.
The arbitration award owed by Milton has emerged as one of the estate’s most significant remaining assets, with the bankruptcy plan relying on it to help resolve an outstanding shareholder class action. Although Nikola previously settled related claims with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the shareholder lawsuit remains unresolved.
Creditors say Milton “has yet to pay a cent.” Milton, who was appealing a four-year prison sentence before receiving a pardon from former U.S. President Donald Trump, has also drawn attention for producing a documentary, scheduled for release on June 10, that he says tells “the true story about how the so called ‘justice system’ nearly destroyed an innocent man.”