Faraday Future loses last member of its founding management team as problems get worse – TechCrunch

There were five. And now, there is none.

Faraday Future, the Chinese start-up of electric vehicles, once fashionable, held many promises and made fanfare, but had trouble providing a real product. This week, the five founding members of his management team suffered two consecutive starts. Nick Sampson, co-founder and senior vice president of product strategy, and Dag Reckhorn, senior vice president of manufacturing at the company, resigned this week.

Departures were first reported by The edge, who has followed the many problems of society closely. Sampson has confirmed his resignation at TechCrunch. Faraday Future has not responded to a request for comment. (We will update if this happens).

Faraday Future was initially launched with the support of Jia Yueting, co-founder of the company with Sampson, former director of Tesla, and Tony Nie, former leader of Lotus. Nie left earlier this year. The founding leadership team consisted of Reckhorn, Sampson, Richard Kim, and two other Tesla veterans, Alan Cherry and Tom Wessner.

Sampson and Reckhorn were the last members of the founding management team. Only Jia Yueting, the founder, co-founder and CEO of the company, remains.

It's been more than four years of drama for the company that is trying to launch the production of a luxury electric SUV, the FF91, by the end of the year.

His last setback may sound the death knell of Faraday Future. The company is quickly running out of money, a problem that has accelerated during a dispute with its main backer, the Chinese real estate giant Evergrande. Evergrande came to the rescue of Faraday when he ran out of money in 2017 and took a 45% stake in the company for $ 2 billion.

This relationship has since deteriorated. Faraday spent $ 800 million in July 2018 to try to finalize a pre-production version of the FF91 at its Hanford, Calif. Plant. Evergrande denied any capital advance and accused Jia of trying to reverse his contract with investors. The case was referred to arbitration and Faraday Future is allowed to seek new investments of up to $ 500 million, provided it can find a willing investor. Even then, Evergrande still has to approve any agreement.

Today, while Faraday Future is looking for other investments, the company has laid off employees, cut wages and, more recently, shut down certain activities at its Hanford plant and its head office in Gardena, California. California.