Nikola founder Trevor Milton is fighting a subpoena from his bankrupt company’s creditors

Trevor Milton, the recently pardoned founder of Nikola, is currently engaged in a legal struggle against a subpoena issued by the creditors of his bankrupt electric trucking company. The official committee representing unsecured creditors filed the subpoena with Milton’s legal team on April 1, as outlined in a recent court document. Milton owes nearly $100 million to Nikola, which filed for bankruptcy in February following an arbitration dispute related to his criminal conviction from 2023, a case he ultimately lost. According to the creditor committee, Milton has yet to fulfill his financial obligations, prompting them to seek clarity on his current financial status through the subpoena. Before the bankruptcy proceedings began, Nikola took legal action against Milton in a federal court in Arizona, accusing him of fraudulently transferring significant assets to obstruct the company's efforts to collect on the arbitration award. The committee’s filing indicates that Milton has been contesting the subpoena for the past two months. Nikola’s legal representatives have argued that the information requested by the creditors may fall under a protective order from the Arizona case. The showdown regarding the subpoena is anticipated to occur during a hearing set for June 9. Neither Milton’s legal team nor the creditors’ committee has responded to requests for comments concerning the ongoing dispute. In the wake of the bankruptcy, Nikola has liquidated most of its assets. Lucid Motors acquired the leases for Nikola’s Arizona headquarters and factory, employing around 300 staff members. Additionally, an auction house purchased the remaining fleet of hydrogen-powered trucks. Consequently, the arbitration award has become one of the few significant remaining assets in Nikola's estate. Prior to its bankruptcy, Nikola faced a class-action lawsuit from shareholders related to misleading statements made during its transition to a public company. Although the company settled with the Securities and Exchange Commission over these allegations, the shareholder lawsuit was still pending when bankruptcy was filed. The creditors' strategy from the onset aimed to utilize Milton’s arbitration award to settle the shareholder claims, but they assert that he has not made any payments thus far. In a twist, Milton, who is appealing his four-year prison sentence, received an unexpected pardon from President Trump. Following this, Nikola’s attorneys accused him of attempting to undermine the bankruptcy process. Additionally, Milton is working on a documentary set to debut on June 10, which he claims will reveal the “true story about how the so-called ‘justice system’ nearly destroyed an innocent man.”