In 2019, Trevor Milton bought a 2,000-acre property on the Weber River near Oakley, Utah, called Riverbed Ranch, for $32.5 million. At the time, it was the most expensive real estate transaction ever recorded in the state.
He also acquired a second, larger Utah ranch, and that one became part of a federal fraud case. In December 2023, he was sentenced to four years in prison and ordered to forfeit the 4,678-acre Wasatch Creeks Ranch in Morgan County, along with a $1 million fine. In March 2025, he received a full presidential pardon.
This guide covers both properties, how the second one was paid for, and what the pardon meant for the man who sold it to him.
The two ranches
| Property | Location | Key figures | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Riverbed Ranch, about 2,000 acres on the Weber River | Oakley, Summit County, Utah | Bought in 2019 for $32.5 million, then a record for Utah | Purchased at the height of his Nikola wealth |
| Wasatch Creeks Ranch, 4,678 acres | Morgan County, Utah | Acquired with cash and Nikola stock options; ordered forfeited in December 2023 | Forfeiture ordered as part of his sentence |
Who is Trevor Milton?
Trevor Milton is an American entrepreneur who founded Nikola Corporation, an electric and hydrogen truck company that reached an enormous public valuation after going public in 2020 on the strength of claims about its technology.
In October 2022, he was convicted of securities fraud and wire fraud, and in December 2023, he was sentenced to four years in prison. He was granted a full pardon by President Donald Trump in March 2025. Nikola itself subsequently went bankrupt.
He was long associated with Oakley, in Summit County, Utah, and is described in local coverage as a former resident there.
Riverbed Ranch
The 2019 purchase is the more straightforward of the two. Milton paid $32.5 million for roughly 2,000 acres along the Weber River near Oakley, in the mountains east of Salt Lake City.
That figure set a state record. Utah is not a market where individual residential transactions reach that level, and a $32.5 million purchase there is closer in scale to a Montana or Wyoming ranch deal than to anything in Salt Lake City.
The timing matters. He bought at the point Nikola was ascending, before the 2020 public listing that briefly made the company’s paper value larger than Ford’s.
Wasatch Creeks Ranch, and how it was paid for
The second property is where the property record and the criminal case meet.
Milton acquired the 4,678-acre Wasatch Creeks Ranch in Morgan County from a seller named Peter Hicks. The purchase was made with a combination of cash and Nikola stock options. Hicks was subsequently identified as a victim of Milton’s wire fraud, on the basis that the value he accepted in Nikola paper had been inflated by Milton’s false claims about the company.
At sentencing in December 2023, the court ordered Milton to forfeit that ranch and to pay a $1 million fine, alongside the four-year custodial sentence.
What the pardon changed
The March 2025 pardon was full and unconditional, which ended the custodial sentence and the financial penalties attached to the conviction.
The Park Record, the local paper in Summit County, reported the consequence plainly: as with the proposed restitution for investors, the seller of the ranch will not recoup the $15 million he was owed, because of the pardon.
That is the significant fact for a property article. A ranch was acquired in a transaction a jury found to be fraudulent, a court ordered it forfeited, and the pardon removed the mechanism by which the person who sold it was to be made whole. Whether the physical property was returned to Milton after the pardon is not clearly established in the reporting reviewed here, and this article does not assert either outcome.
Property acquired during a fraud is unusually difficult to unwind even without a pardon, because the assets are typically encumbered, jointly held or already sold on. The pattern is visible in the very different endings documented in the accounts of Caroline Ellison and John McAfee, neither of whom received a pardon.
Where does Trevor Milton live now?
The public record does not establish it.
He is consistently described in Utah coverage as a former Summit County resident and a one-time resident of Oakley, which suggests he no longer lives at Riverbed Ranch, though no sale of that property has been reported in the sources reviewed here. He may still own it.
No purchase by him has been reported since the pardon, and no current address, city, or property has been published. Court filings during the criminal case referred to Utah ranch holdings, luxury vehicles, and other assets, but those are filings from 2022 and 2023 rather than a description of his position today.
The honest summary is that he bought two very large Utah ranches at the peak of Nikola’s valuation, that one of them was ordered forfeited as the proceeds of fraud, that a pardon removed the penalties in 2025, and that where he lives now is not a matter of public record.
Sources
- Park Record on the December 2023 sentencing, the four-year term, the $1 million fine, and the order to forfeit the Morgan County ranch.
- Park Record on the March 2025 pardon, the 2019 purchase of Riverbed Ranch at $32.5 million as a state record, and the effect on the seller’s $15 million.
- CNBC on the pardon and the underlying securities fraud case.
- The Register on the forfeiture of the 4,678-acre ranch and how it was acquired.
