In an interview with Semafor published on Thursday, Peter Rawlinson, CEO of Lucid Group, Inc. LCID discussed the company's relationship with the Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia, Lucid's rivalry with Tesla, Inc. TSLA and Elon Musk's political views.
Saudi Money: Saudi Arabia's PIF has invested approximately $8 billion in Lucid, and the sovereign wealth fund holds about a 60% stake in the EV maker, making it the company’s largest shareholder. Lucid is also building a factory in Saudi Arabia with an annual production capacity of 150,000 vehicles. The PIF has said that it views Lucid as an important part of its strategy to diversify Saudi Arabia’s economy and invest in future technologies.
"They are looking for multipliers that can help their transition," Rawlinson said regarding the Saudi partnership. "I didn't go out and try to seek Saudi money specifically. But I needed billions of dollars."
Lucid announced a public offering of its stock on Wednesday and Saudi PIF-affiliate Ayar Third Investment Company had agreed to purchase an additional 374,717,927 shares of Lucid's stock in a private placement in connection with the offering. The company expects to receive another $970.2 million in gross proceeds from the PIF's latest investment.
Rawlinson on Elon Musk's Politics: Rawlinson revealed that he knows Elon Musk "very well" after working for him for three years, but that the Tesla CEO has become "distracted with politics."
"His mind is not where it was, and you see the result now," Rawlinson said in the interview. "We're the new leader, and many of my team from Tesla have come and joined me."
Rawlinson went so far as to claim that he was not only taking staff from Tesla due to Musk's political involvement, but said former Tesla customers are fleeing to Lucid as well. He illustrated his point with an anecdote about an email from a customer who switched from Tesla to Lucid.
“We just couldn't drive around in a Tesla anymore. We bought a Lucid out of disdain for Elon, but now we've got it, we can't believe what we've got," Rawlinson said the customer wrote.
EV Demand: Lucid recently scaled back its production targets, though Rawlinson claims Lucid is outperforming luxury EV competitors in certain markets.
"In some markets now, Lucid Air is outselling Tesla Model S," Rawlinson stated.
The Lucid CEO said vehicle manufacturing is not a problem and pointed to the company's production levels of 100 EVs per day in 2022. He sees Lucid's problem as low EV market demand.
"The market is tough. The actual sales numbers of EVs are increasing. It's just that the rate of increase was not what we anticipated."
LCID Price Action: According to Benzinga Pro, Lucid shares ended Friday's session at $2.63, down more than 22% over the past five days.
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