Trevor Milton is an American businessman and entrepreneur who has a net worth of $3 billion. He is best known for being the co-founder of electric truck maker, Nikola. Trevor resigned from the company in September 2020 amid allegations of investor fraud. He is frequently compared to Elon Musk.
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.
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 (when a non-public company acquires a public company), in June 2020. 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 has at various times approached as much as $12 billion and as little as $3 billion.
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.
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 $3.1 billion in stock, roughly 92 million company shares.
| Net Worth: | $3 Billion |
| Date of Birth: | Apr 6, 1982 (40 years old) |
| Place of Birth: | Layton, Utah, U.S. |
| Profession: | Businessman |