At last year’s Kennedy Center Honors, the venue’s biggest event of the year, Trevor Milton took in part of the show from the balcony where honorees, celebrities and the president and first lady sat. Afterward, the entrepreneur mingled with guests—honorees included Sylvester Stallone and George Strait—inside the SyberJet Lounge, a swanky space that his company had spent millions to sponsor and that President Trump had called “gorgeous.”
That the 43-year-old was attending the black tie event with stars and Washington elites in December is a sign of how drastically Milton’s fortunes had changed in 2025.
Early that year, Nikola, the hydrogen truck company Milton had founded, filed for bankruptcy. Milton had left Nikola in 2020 under a cloud, and by 2022 had been convicted of defrauding the company’s investors with what prosecutors said were his repeated lies about the development of the company’s zero-emissions trucks and technology. He faced a four-year prison term—he was free on appeal—and federal prosecutors were seeking roughly $676 million in restitution from him.
It was wiped away with a phone call. In March 2025, Trump called Milton to tell him he had signed an unconditional pardon. Milton had styled himself as a political victim of the Biden administration, and Trump agreed.
Milton and his wife had also donated at least $3.2 million to Trump’s 2024 election and to political groups and people in Trump’s orbit, including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Milton said the donations weren’t related to his pardon.
Now, Milton has joined an exclusive group of post-pardon businesspeople, seemingly anointed by Trump’s favor. “I walk into meetings now, and I’ll get high-fives from the most wealthy people in the world,” he said. “They’re like, ‘Welcome to the club. You can withstand the fire. We can trust you now.’”
Milton has wasted little time embarking on his second act. He’s now CEO of SyberJet Aircraft, an ailing jet manufacturer, which he said he purchased with an investment group. He brought on dozens of former Nikola staffers to rejuvenate it. “I love to find products that are unreal and need someone with vision or guts to be able to bring it to market,” he said.
He has unveiled plans for a new small jet that he says will have the highest speed and range—and largest lavatory—in the light jet category. Investor documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal said the goal is for the plane to be the first light jet to focus on artificial-intelligence flight.
To get to market, SyberJet plans to create an entirely new avionics system—likening the effort to Tesla’s approach to designing its infotainment and vehicle-control system. The company also needs to secure more funding and suppliers and overcome regulatory hurdles.
SyberJet separately wants to build an autonomous jet for the military, according to the investor documents. SyberJet’s fighter, the documents said, would have more than twice the range and could take off with more weight than competitors while still costing several million dollars less.
Key elements of both projects are still in the theory stage as Milton works to attract the money he needs. Investor documents said that SyberJet is seeking to raise $1 billion from investors and claimed the company currently has a valuation of $4 billion. Milton declined to comment on details included in the investor documents.
He attended a November event with potential Saudi investors and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick—schmoozing with attendees in the company’s namesake Kennedy center lounge—and invited some guests to visit SyberJet’s facilities in Arizona. He has upped SyberJet’s lobbying budget to “educate the government on how AI flight would happen” and has been touting his plans for the “ground up” design of new avionics he says will transform how small jets fly—and eventually be sold to other plane makers. He is even producing a video series on what he calls the jet’s start-to-finish comeback.
The efforts echo how Milton built investor heat for Nikola—which eventually collapsed amid unfulfilled promises of a technological revolution, allegations of fraud and litigation.
SyberJet’s own history shows the challenges. Over the past 40 years, an eclectic mix of financiers from Dubai to Taiwan invested hundreds of millions of dollars in developing the plane maker’s lightweight business jets. But in all that time just four planes made it into the hands of customers. The company failed to attract enough funds or maintain a reliable supply chain. In a 2016 report about the company’s jet program, an industry analyst declared simply: “It’s dead.”
Milton, a college dropout turned serial entrepreneur, has had a mixed record with all his businesses. What’s left of Nikola is suing him, while several of his other startups, including an e-commerce site called uPillar.com and another truck startup, failed to deliver a product, burned through investor cash or became entangled in litigation. But Milton, who denied he committed any fraud at Nikola and said he was falsely charged, said his close brush with prison left him stronger.
“If you took 100 people and put them through what I went through, 98 would have been dead or killed themselves,” he said. “Two would have ever survived, and I was one of those two.”
Milton was one of a wave of high-profile pardons Trump issued over the first year of his term. Among others, the president pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the billionaire behind Binance, who pleaded guilty to failing to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering program, potentially paving the way for the world’s largest crypto-trading platform to return to the U.S.
He pardoned Joe Lewis, a British billionaire whose family owns an English Premier League soccer club and who had pleaded guilty to charges of securities fraud. He also commuted the sentence of David Gentile, a former private-equity executive who was 12 days into serving a seven-year prison sentence for defrauding investors.
Trump also pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández, the former Honduran president who had been convicted of helping to smuggle 400 tons of cocaine and had been serving a 45-year sentence. And he pardoned hundreds of others, including more than 1,500 related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.
Milton founded Nikola in 2015, and it went public in 2020 through a high-profile SPAC merger, projecting that it would be among the fastest companies ever to reach $10 billion in revenue. It promised technology that would enable heavy trucks to run on hydrogen fuel instead of diesel.
Through podcast appearances, tweets and interviews, Milton used social media to build hype for the brand and spar with naysayers. A run-up in Nikola’s stock in 2020 briefly vaulted the company’s market valuation over Ford Motor, more than a year before it delivered a truck.
Prosecutors said that Milton made repeated statements exaggerating or misrepresenting the capabilities of the company and its products. One example, which they said later enticed retail investors into the stock: Nikola shared on YouTube in 2018 a video of a truck that appeared to be moving along a desert highway. The company later admitted that the truck had been towed to the top of a hill and allowed to roll down.
Milton told The Wall Street Journal that “social media was used and created to show the process of building a company from scratch and the process of failures and overcoming failures to build a company.” He said he didn’t share the YouTube video, which he said was approved by other executives.
A few months after Nikola went public, short-selling firm Hindenburg Research accused Milton of lying about Nikola’s technology and its partnerships. In an expletive-filled social-media video, Milton said the Hindenburg report was filled with misleading statements and disparaged the researchers. He stepped away from the company 10 days later.
Within a year, he was indicted for fraud. Nikola itself settled an investigation with the SEC for $125 million, without admitting or denying wrongdoing. The company later took Milton to arbitration, where it won a decision that Milton was 97% responsible for the misrepresentations leading to Nikola’s fine and was awarded up to $167 million. Milton continues to litigate the award in federal court.
The trustee for Nikola’s liquidation said it had a judgment for more than $100 million. “I will use all available legal means to recover 100% of that judgment,” said trustee Thomas Pitta.
In the 18 months around going public, Milton cashed in nearly $400 million in Nikola stock, according to securities filings.
He said his only regret from the Nikola saga was resigning from the company rather than fighting for its success. “I went through hell for something I didn’t do,” Milton said, adding that the company reported having around $1 billion in cash on hand after he left. He said the company went bankrupt through “endless litigation.”
Milton supported Trump’s campaign for the presidency as it picked up through 2024. He and his wife donated more than $1.8 million to a Trump fundraising committee, and made additional contributions to state and national Republican organizations supporting Trump, according to campaign finance records.
Records also show that Milton and his wife made roughly $1.4 million in donations to organizations and political-action committees raising funds for Kennedy, who at the time of the donations had already dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump.
“I wanted to see [Trump] win and thank heavens he did,” Milton said. “It saved my life.”
Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, is the sister of Brad Bondi, one of Milton’s lead defense lawyers. Milton said that relationship played no role in his trial or clemency.
Milton said that when Trump called to tell him about the pardon, the president put the phone on the paper so Milton could hear the scratch of the pen. Milton said he and his wife both began sobbing. Trump told Milton that Bobby, referring to Kennedy, said great things about him, the Journal reported.
In a White House press conference, Trump said Milton had received “fantastic recommendations” and “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.”
A White House spokesperson said “a whole team of qualified lawyers” look at every pardon request that makes its way to the president. “He’s the ultimate, final decision maker,” the spokesperson said. “And he was very clear when he came into office that he was most interested in looking at pardoning individuals who were abused and used by the Biden Department of Justice.”
The spokesperson added that any donations Milton “may or may not have made played absolutely no role” in the president’s decision to pardon him.
After leaving Nikola, Milton said he flew small aircraft to keep his mind sharp, logging 1,500 hours. He also flew a helicopter between his 2,670-acre ranch in Utah and other properties, sometimes to the dismay of his neighbors.
He said that, in 2024, he purchased SyberJet with an investment group, declining to say how much he paid. In addition to funding and supply problems, the small company had been hobbled by time-consuming design modifications and the 2008 financial crisis.
“I wanted to show that I could take this jet…revise it completely, make it even better and bring it to market and be successful when other people couldn’t,” he said.
Its origins trace back to Ed Swearingen, an engineer who had worked on aircraft during World War II. By the 1980s, Swearingen had begun work on a lower-cost, small business jet that he would eventually call the SJ30. It was a six-to-seven seat jet capable of cruising at approximately 550 miles an hour and reaching up to 2,500 nautical miles without refueling—faster and farther than many other jets of its size.
Over the years, the company received funding from an assortment of investors and partners: the Taiwanese government, defense contractor Lockheed Martin and an investment firm in Dubai.
The plane was certified in 2005, and in 2007 the company delivered a jet to its first customer, a Texas businessman who was one of its major investors. The company delivered three more jets to customers.
The company changed hands more than once and in 2011 was renamed SyberJet Aircraft. But suppliers balked at contracting with it, because of its history of shaky funding and unreliable sales.
“As a program, it crashed and burned” under the variety of owners and investors that managed the company, said Richard Aboulafia, the managing director of AeroDynamic Advisory, a consulting firm.
Milton said building planes is riskier than building trucks. “It’s 10 times harder than Nikola ever was,” he said. “It is difficult and we have a high chance of failing for many reasons, including funding.”
Milton is working to launch the new jet, a nine-seater called the SJ36, which he said would beat out its rivals by being capable of flying nonstop from New York to Los Angeles. He plans to launch it by 2032 and sell hundreds of the model.
Dozens of SyberJet’s full-time employees are former Nikola staff—most of them bring engineering and technical experience—and Milton hopes to hire more former Nikola employees as the company expands, he said. He said he has also purchased around 80 of Nikola’s semi trucks out of bankruptcy.
In October, SyberJet signed a lease for a new 130,000-square foot headquarters in Chandler, Ariz. Milton headed to Las Vegas that month for the National Business Aviation Association’s annual conference—which brings together jet companies and suppliers, government regulators and investors. He signed a deal there with manufacturer Williams International to supply engines for the SJ36.
In November, he attended the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum, a day-long conference at the Kennedy center designed to bring together investors on clean energy, AI, advanced manufacturing, finance and health. He chatted with potential investors in the SyberJet lounge that afternoon, according to a person who attended. A lighted SyberJet logo hung above the bar, and ornate chandeliers cast the wood-paneled room, designed in elegant grays, in a soft glow. Milton said he attended the forum but couldn’t remember the reception.
Milton said the new plane will feature a touch screen cockpit interface the company is designing itself. The move has been criticized by some analysts for being risky and time-consuming—typically a plane maker would outsource the work to other companies that specialize in the software that controls everything from navigation to fuel optimization.
Milton said companies that supply aircraft electronics, or avionics, to plane manufacturers, including SyberJet’s former supplier Honeywell, declined to provide the avionics SyberJet wanted.
“You can’t update avionics over the air, control the plane remotely, add artificial intelligence or provide the features we are building without rebuilding the avionics,” Milton said. “Very similar to Tesla’s approach, you cannot use legacy software in a brand new electric vehicle program, just as you can’t use legacy avionics with a brand new plane design and remain competitive in the future.”
He said the avionics the company is developing will integrate some level of AI and that he hopes “to display that in the coming one to two years to the public.” He said he wants SyberJet eventually to be the first to produce fully autonomous corporate jets. “Eventually everyone is going to have to do what we do, but they’re probably just going to buy our platform,” he said.
The investor documents said the company’s planned military jet would have autonomous or human piloting and would be cheaper than drones from Anduril Industries and General Atomics, saying SyberJet’s would be priced at $22 million each. The documents didn’t give a timeline for any production, but said the aircraft could be used for surveillance or fighting, or to carry cargo or passengers.
Milton declined to comment on details about the jet. He said the program could change and “there’s also no guarantee that we will ever meet production or anything else.”
As Nikola’s executive chairman, Milton boasted that other manufacturers were asking to use the company’s components, which he described at the time as having “probably some of the most advanced software systems” in the automotive space. Prosecutors and Nikola employees later said that Nikola was sourcing these critical components from other suppliers. Milton, in the interview, disputed this characterization.
These days, SyberJet includes disclaimers, saying on its website that the company “assumes no liability for any loss, damage, or misinterpretation arising from the use of this data, including financial or operational decisions.”
Milton told the Journal: “We tell everybody the likelihood of our success is minimal with a high degree of failure. Not to invest unless they are long-term partners that believe in autonomous flight. And willing to deal with enormous amounts of regulation, delays, and other issues we do not see coming.”
When asked about financial projections offered to potential investors, Milton said, “It’s not smart to publish any type of profitability forecasts with the general public.”
Federal lobbying disclosures show that since June, SyberJet paid $490,000 to lobbying firm Checkmate Government Relations. Among those working on SyberJet’s behalf are Chris LaCivita Jr., the son of the co-manager of Trump’s 2024 election campaign.
Milton said a “minimal” amount of lobbying funds have been directed at advocating for a simplified aircraft certification process, but that mostly the lobbying has been around “trying to educate the government on how AI flight would happen with new avionics.”
SyberJet has hired a small crew to film the development of the new jet, with a documentary-style TV series of hourlong episodes to run on YouTube, Milton said, calling it an effort to be transparent to the public.
“Some of the best films out there…like Secretariat and other movies around race horses, where they were never even expected to be successful. And then they ended up [winning] the Triple Crown,” he said. “It’s a true American comeback story.”
Write to Christopher Kuo at chris.kuo@wsj.com and Ben Foldy at ben.foldy@wsj.com
","readTimeMin":12,"provider":{"id":"AAynGx","name":"The Wall Street Journal","companyLegalName":"Dow Jones & Company, Inc.","logo":{"id":"AA1V258b","width":400,"height":400,"url":"https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AA1V258b.img","title":"","source":"msn"},"lightScalableVectorLogo":{"width":142,"height":12,"url":"https://cdn.query.prod.cms.msn.com/cms/api/amp/binary/AA13gD5m","title":"","source":"msn"},"darkScalableVectorLogo":{"width":142,"height":12,"url":"https://cdn.query.prod.cms.msn.com/cms/api/amp/binary/AA13gD5m-dark","title":"","source":"msn"},"subscriptionUrl":"","isPremium":true,"url":"http://online.wsj.com/","profileId":"vid-y572a3ryyddhuiujs0xe2j4m4b6c3n2fp5hnux4jpsdand8h09ys","comScoreStackedTags":{"ca1":"1","ca3":"13047035","ca2":"6035148","ca4":"MSNWSJ","ca6":"*null"},"fullSizeLogoPrimaryColor":"","fullSizeLogoSecondaryColor":"","lightSquareLogo":{"id":"AA1V1LDs","width":400,"height":400,"url":"https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AA1V1LDs.img","title":"","source":"msn"},"darkSquareLogo":{"id":"AA1V1SN1","width":400,"height":400,"url":"https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AA1V1SN1.img","title":"","source":"msn"},"lightFullLogo":{"id":"AA1V1Qpn","width":1366,"height":400,"url":"https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AA1V1Qpn.img","title":"","source":"msn"},"darkFullLogo":{"id":"AA1V1Qpo","width":1367,"height":396,"url":"https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AA1V1Qpo.img","title":"","source":"msn"}},"socialEmbeds":[],"seo":{"canonicalUrl":"https://www.wsj.com/business/trevor-milton-pardon-nikola-trump-3163e19c?mod=RSSMSN","canonicalAuthority":"provider","sharingAuthority":0,"disallowIndexing":false,"excludeFromSiteMap":false,"keywords":[]},"tags":[{"label":"Fortune 500","weight":0.9755258560180664,"feedId":"Y_66aab8cd-65a4-477c-b208-d18459ad42e4","locale":"en-us"},{"label":"Business","weight":0.9755258560180664,"feedId":"Y_367b7be1-6bd2-44e7-95b3-b0d077ccc28d","locale":"en-us"},{"label":"Money","weight":0.9755258560180664,"feedId":"Y_f714b6e2-e9db-41d0-9b5f-b2e0a52f85da","locale":"en-us"},{"label":"US","weight":0.6877521872520447,"feedId":"Y_a3b33cc2-2c47-48ba-a975-4b87b597644b","locale":"en-us"},{"label":"News","weight":0.6877521872520447,"feedId":"Y_9eb0ac10-32bc-43cf-816e-5beaaf524f7a","locale":"en-us"}],"facets":[{"key":"displayAds","values":["1"]}],"keywords":[],"contentQuality":{"result":2},"satoriTags":[{"label":"wf_topic_politics","weight":77.0,"feedId":"215981b9-2d7e-4347-8d65-8a69e777a462"},{"label":"wf_topic_law","weight":73.0,"feedId":"8cb0b929-14d2-4278-b5e0-1ec1f964b600"},{"label":"wf_topic_business","weight":64.0,"feedId":"5d5524a3-1f4e-4d0f-8242-b7daadefcad1"},{"label":"Stock","weight":6.0,"feedId":"458fb3ec-80f7-2a40-2f5e-ea0bf47fe7f6"},{"label":"Kennedy Center Honors","weight":1.0,"feedId":"ce070b94-bef0-30a1-8134-45954d3242dc"},{"label":"The New York Times","weight":1.0,"feedId":"614b60a2-4ccd-3ecb-15dc-6e2fba54ed28"},{"label":"Fraud","weight":1.0,"feedId":"774fc83b-059a-48ee-a99a-2f70f1cee025"},{"label":"Sylvester Stallone","weight":0.9712241728858043,"feedId":"b02d3a12-c8e7-2b68-24c4-eb061803d63a"},{"label":"Milton, Indiana","weight":0.8500000000000001,"feedId":"da57f303-366f-deef-fe0d-550c5943dd12"},{"label":"Donald Trump","weight":0.4640531548856137,"feedId":"1a466af2-ed23-25bd-794d-1ca925e4681b"},{"label":"Small business","weight":0.1212129340035952,"feedId":"fa721054-524e-4381-1b5b-1a4ecfb71a5c"},{"label":"System","weight":0.06136531939200375,"feedId":"ad5d4906-c3ab-8fed-01ba-7a804813b64a"},{"label":"Hydrogen","weight":0.05555555555555556,"feedId":"7457167d-2bc3-5806-cb94-b011d64a85f9"},{"label":"Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.","weight":0.05271919438774105,"feedId":"e045d327-0fdc-d12c-b847-d1c25c43331e"},{"label":"Social media","weight":0.05,"feedId":"4ce177ea-a99f-5e40-7159-82f7b5581be3"},{"label":"Technology","weight":0.05,"feedId":"ebf1abd7-9ec4-7875-6a41-a8aaa77bdbb2"},{"label":"Failure","weight":0.05,"feedId":"5dc5b0df-b228-1a55-ef5a-c9e204f750c8"},{"label":"John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts","weight":0.04659800028906792,"feedId":"97aefee8-88b3-b828-644d-209bf309e134"},{"label":"YouTube","weight":0.036337645045449826,"feedId":"4fe14df6-d63f-93e5-3032-b0e7050bca8c"},{"label":"Software","weight":0.03333333333333333,"feedId":"1c919d01-ffcc-1f0a-fa8b-82c6a6cd9f79"}],"sourceId":"WP-WSJ-0003397568","feedId":"AA1vykdo","hasHeroImage":false,"subscriptionProductType":0,"intAttributes":{"hasSyndicationRights":1,"isBreaking":0,"isEmbedOnly":0,"renderingRestriction":0,"isExclusive":0,"isNoteworthy":0,"isVisible":0,"softDemotion":0,"galleryCount":0,"isProviderSubscribable":0,"hasHeroImage":0,"isContentFresh":0,"subscriptionProductType":0,"providerFlagAiExperiments":0,"videoYtChannelSubscriberCount":6570000,"newsClusterV8Hash":939973634,"newsClusterV7Hash":-1442612632,"newsClusterV6Hash":884184795},"displayAttributes":{"disableDefaultCopilotButtons":true},"stringSignals":{"feedId":"AA1vykdo","label":"finance-companies","product":"finance"},"stringAttributes":{"providerTags":"","providerSummary":"{\"id\":\"AAynGx\",\"name\":\"The Wall Street Journal\",\"adNetworkId\":\"188286\",\"logo\":{\"width\":400,\"height\":400,\"url\":\"https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AA1V258b.img\",\"source\":\"msn\"},\"mainLogo\":{\"id\":\"AA1V258b\",\"width\":400,\"height\":400,\"url\":\"https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AA1V258b.img\",\"title\":\"\",\"source\":\"msn\"},\"lightScalableVectorLogo\":{\"width\":142,\"height\":12,\"url\":\"https://cdn.query.prod.cms.msn.com/cms/api/amp/binary/AA13gD5m\",\"title\":\"\",\"source\":\"msn\"},\"darkScalableVectorLogo\":{\"width\":142,\"height\":12,\"url\":\"https://cdn.query.prod.cms.msn.com/cms/api/amp/binary/AA13gD5m-dark\",\"title\":\"\",\"source\":\"msn\"},\"subscribable\":false,\"profileId\":\"vid-y572a3ryyddhuiujs0xe2j4m4b6c3n2fp5hnux4jpsdand8h09ys\",\"url\":\"http://online.wsj.com/\",\"largeFaviconUrl\":\"https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AA1V1LDq.img\",\"flags\":{\"infinite_feed\":true,\"noarchive\":true,\"related_video\":true,\"interactive_ai_experiences\":false,\"copilot_daily\":false,\"ai_experiences\":false,\"ai_experiments\":false,\"commenting\":true}}","subType":"","variation":"","headlineAlternatives":"{\"originalHeadline\":{\"title\":\"Pardoned for Fraud, a CEO Mounts His Comeback: ‘We Can Trust You Now’\",\"isValid\":true},\"gptvcdTitleQuality\":{\"title\":\"Pardoned for fraud, a CEO mounts his comeback: ‘We can trust you now’\",\"isValid\":true}}","bingThumbnailWebP":"https://th.bing.com/th?id=OMSN.AA1YRUIv.webp&pid=Wdpv2","bingThumbnailWebPWithROI":"https://th.bing.com/th?id=OMSN.AA1YRUIv.webp&roil=0&roit=0.029908972&roir=1&roib=0.85955787&pid=Wdpv2","tH_AR_1_91":"https://th.bing.com/th?id=OMSN.AA1YRUIv.webp-2C&pid=Wdpv2","tH_AR_1_59":"https://th.bing.com/th?id=OMSN.AA1YRUIv.webp-Gem&pid=Wdpv2","key_takeaways_latest":"**Trevor Milton’s Comeback After Pardon** \n\n🛩️ **Business Revival**: Milton is now **CEO of SyberJet Aircraft**, aiming to launch a **new AI-focused light jet** and a **military autonomous jet**, seeking $1 billion in funding with a $4 billion valuation. \n\n⚖️ **Legal & Political Turnaround**: Pardoned by **Trump in 2025**, wiping out his Nikola fraud conviction and $676 million restitution, after donating **$3.2M to Trump-linked campaigns**. \n\n🌟 **High-Profile Networking**: Attends elite events like the **Kennedy Center Honors**, mingling with celebrities, investors, and political figures to boost SyberJet’s visibility and lobbying efforts.","key_takeaways_short":"Trevor Milton rebounds after pardon, launching ambitious jet venture. \n\n✈️ **Business Comeback**: Milton is now **CEO of SyberJet Aircraft**, aiming to revolutionize light jets with **AI flight** and new avionics. \n\n💰 **Political & Financial Ties**: Received a **Trump pardon** in 2025; previously donated **$3.2M** to Trump-linked campaigns. \n\n🚀 **Future Plans**: Seeks **$1B funding**, developing **autonomous military jets** and a high-speed, long-range small jet with innovative features.","cstarter_ld_latest00":"What led to the CEO's fraud conviction?","cstarter_ld_latest01":"What strategies help CEOs regain credibility after scandals?","cstarter_ld_latest02":"What companies are supporting the CEO's comeback?","cstarter_ld_latest03":"How is the CEO rebuilding public trust?","cstarter_ld_latest04":"Who else received pardons for corporate fraud?","cstarter_ld_latest05":"How do investors react to pardoned executives?","terav4_t1_business_&_finance":"business_&_finance","terav4_t2_business_&_finance>aerospace_industry":"business_&_finance>aerospace_industry","terav4_t2_business_&_finance>corporate_accountability":"business_&_finance>corporate_accountability","terav4_t2_business_&_finance>entrepreneurs":"business_&_finance>entrepreneurs","terav4_t1_politics":"politics","terav4_t2_technology>aviation":"technology>aviation","terav4_t3_technology>aviation>jet_aircraft":"technology>aviation>jet_aircraft","terav4_t1_technology":"technology","vertical_tera":"finance","subvertical_tera":"general","url_tera":"https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/pardoned-for-fraud-a-ceo-mounts-his-comeback-we-can-trust-you-now/ar-AA1YRlL9"},"numberDictionaryMap":{},"id":"AA1YRlL9","name":"","source":"msn","type":"article","version":"3","createdBy":"micropublish","createdDateTime":"2026-03-18T01:05:56Z","updatedDateTime":"2026-03-18T01:08:44Z","publishedDateTime":"2026-03-18T01:00:00Z","locale":"en-us","categories":[{"product":"finance","label":"finance-companies","source":"SelectionMLModel","score":0.8806577920913696,"locale":"en-us"}],"jsonDataMap":{"availableVariants":"[\"e2etest1\"]","displayType":"Card","displayValue":"{\"Type\":\"Card\",\"TypeExp\":null,\"Segment\":\"Blog\",\"Topic\":\"UnknownTopic\",\"InferredTopics\":[],\"ItemId\":\"AA1YRlL9\",\"Title\":\"Pardoned for fraud, a CEO mounts his comeback: ‘We can trust you now’\",\"ImageUrl\":\"https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AA1YRUIv.img\",\"BingImageUrl\":\"https://th.bing.com/th?id=ORMS.28ff25e147c495656a185b43b6fec493&pid=Wdp\",\"HostIconUrl\":\"https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AA1V258b.img\",\"ImageProviderType\":null,\"ImageProviderName\":null,\"ArticleProviderType\":null,\"ArticleProviderName\":\"The Wall Street Journal\",\"Url\":\"https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/pardoned-for-fraud-a-ceo-mounts-his-comeback-we-can-trust-you-now/ar-AA1YRlL9\",\"Snippet\":\"Trevor Milton’s conviction for defrauding investors in truck company Nikola was wiped away. He’s now raising funds for a new jet he claims will transform flying.\",\"CreatedOn\":\"2026-03-18T01:00:00Z\",\"CreatedOnUTC\":null,\"ExpirationDate\":\"\",\"ImageHeight\":1538,\"ImageWidth\":1280,\"FocalRegion\":{\"X1\":587,\"X2\":675,\"Y1\":695,\"Y2\":783},\"ImageUrlVNext\":\"https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AA1YRUIv.img\",\"ImageHeightVNext\":0,\"ImageWidthVNext\":0,\"TypeVNext\":\"Card\",\"Market\":null,\"ImageCarousel\":[],\"ImageCarouselVNext\":[],\"ImageEncodingFormat\":null,\"ImageGoBigSignal\":null,\"Video\":null}","isLocalNews":"0","financeMetadata":"eyJTdG9ja3MiOlt7IlN0b2NrSWQiOiJhMjR4dTIiLCJTY29yZSI6NjAwMDAxMDB9XSwiU2VudGltZW50UmF0aW5ncyI6W3siVG9waWMiOiJ3Zl9zZW50aW1lbnRfcG9zaXRpdmUiLCJTY29yZSI6Njg0M30seyJUb3BpYyI6IndmX3NlbnRpbWVudF9uZWdhdGl2ZSIsIlNjb3JlIjoyMjM1fSx7IlRvcGljIjoid2Zfc2VudGltZW50X25ldXRyYWwiLCJTY29yZSI6OTIwfV0sIkNhdGVnb3JpZXMiOlt7IlRvcGljIjoiY29tcGFuaWVzIiwiU2NvcmUiOjEwMDAwfV19","colorSampling":"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","numberMap":"{}"},"scoredCategories":{"intlv3_fraud":881,"intlv3_scams":372,"intlv3_fraud_detection":248,"intlv3_business":165,"intlv3_politics_of_the_united_states_of_america":127,"intlv3_venture_capital":106,"intlv3_investors":80,"intlv3_scandals":78,"intlv3_chief_executive_officers":76,"intlv3_investing":67,"intlv3tier1_business":701,"intlv3tier1_politics":116,"intlv3tier1_news":60,"intlv3tier2_company-news":298,"intlv3tier2_finance-news":80,"intlv3tier2_business-news":65,"intlv3tier2_canada-news":53,"intlv3tier2_markets":51,"intlv3tier2_finance-video":42,"intlv3tier2_uk-news":23,"intlv3tier2_australia-news":20,"intlv3tier2_personal-finance":14,"intlv3tier2_other-news":14,"terav2_business":967,"terav2_entrepreneurship":843,"terav2_aviation":750,"terav2_startups":699,"terav2_innovation":675,"terav2_car_companies":666,"terav2_commercial_aircraft":583,"terav2_startups_and_entrepreneurship":563,"terav2_cars":561,"terav2_private_jets":530,"terat1_business_&_finance":963,"terat1_technology":860,"terat1_politics":660,"terat2_aviation_industry":871,"terat2_aeronautics":866,"terat2_government":864,"terat2_tech_companies":848,"terat2_aviation":833,"terat2_technology_industry":757,"terat2_automotive_industry":740,"terat2_pop_culture":625,"terat2_startups":613,"terat3_elon_musk":769,"terat3_private_jets":751,"terat3_commercial_passenger_aircraft":556,"terat3_tesla":500,"terat3_fx_a24kar":757,"terat3_fx_a1sjw7":752},"_t":"ContentView","colorSamples":[{"isDarkMode":true,"hexColor":"#5D5035","isGreyScale":false},{"isDarkMode":false,"hexColor":"#E5DBC9","isGreyScale":false}]}