Trevor Milton seeks $1B for new autonomous aviation venture

It has been almost exactly one year since Trevor Milton, the founder of the now-bankrupt electric truck startup Nikola, was pardoned by President Trump. Now, a report published by the Wall Street Journal has provided one of the first deep dives into Milton’s new business effort: trying to build autonomous planes. According to the report, Milton is currently attempting to raise $1B for this new autonomous aviation venture. The initiative began late last year when Milton and an investment group purchased SyberJet Aircraft, an aviation company. Since the acquisition, Milton has reportedly spent his time trying to turn the company around.

To execute this turnaround, Milton is bringing in dozens of former Nikola staff members to join the new venture. He has also spent a few hundred thousand dollars on lobbying efforts and is actively soliciting potential investors from Saudi Arabia to back the project. The company wants to design an entirely new avionics system—defined as the electronic systems used on aircraft—from the ground up. This new system is intended to help the company create what it aims to be the first light jet (a category of small business jet aircraft) to focus on artificial-intelligence flight. If successful, the development of this AI-focused light jet could potentially open the door for the company to secure defense contracts.

Despite the scale of the ambition, the effort faces significant scrutiny given the founder’s history. Milton, who was convicted of fraud in 2022, acknowledged the immense difficulty of transitioning from electric trucks to aviation. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Milton compared the complexity of his new aviation startup to his previous venture, stating that he thinks building planes will be “10 times harder than Nikola ever was.”

Why it matters

Milton’s pivot from electric trucks to autonomous aviation highlights the continued interest in high-stakes hardware ventures, even for founders with controversial pasts.