Pardoned Nikola founder Trevor Milton is trying to raise $1B for AI-powered planes

In Brief Posted: 10:58 AM PDT · March 18, 2026 Image Credits:Stephen Yang / Bloomberg / Getty Images Sean O'Kane Pardoned Nikola founder Trevor Milton is trying to raise $1B for AI-powered planes It’s been almost exactly one year since Trevor Milton, the founder of now-bankrupt electric truck startup Nikola, was pardoned by President Trump. Now the Wall Street Journal has published one of the first deep dives into Milton’s new effort: trying to build autonomous planes. Milton and an “investment group” purchased a downtrodden aviation company called SyberJet Aircraft late last year and he has spent the time since trying to turn the company around. That involves bringing in “dozens” of former Nikola staff, soliciting possible investors from Saudi Arabia, and spending a few hundred thousand dollars on lobbying, according to the report. He reportedly wants to design an entirely new avionics system from the ground up that will help the company create the “first light jet to focus on artificial-intelligence flight,” which could open the door for defense contracts. But Milton, who was convicted of fraud in 2022, told the newspaper that he thinks planes will be “10 times harder than Nikola ever was.” Topics autonomous vehicles, aviation, In Brief, Nikola, Transportation June 9 Boston, MA Actively scaling? Fundraising? Planning your next launch?TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026 delivers tactical playbooks and direct access to 1,000+ founders and investors who are building, backing, and closing. REGISTER NOW Newsletters See More Subscribe for the industry’s biggest tech news TechCrunch Daily News Every weekday and Sunday, you can get the best of TechCrunch’s coverage. TechCrunch Mobility TechCrunch Mobility is your destination for transportation news and insight.

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