That’s it for Carsten Breitfeld (59). The manager is also rid of the next job as CEO of an electric car manufacturer. The board of the electric car start-up Faraday Future had already met on Saturday – and then sent the German top manager a written letter of resignation. Breitfeld lost his job with immediate effect. The successor is the previous head of the China business: Xuefeng Chen (46).
For the earlier one bmwManager Breitfeld – who has always been at the forefront of the wild e-car boom for years – ends the next electric adventure in a fiasco. In 2016 he had in China founded the electric car company Byton together with former BMW colleague Daniel Kirchert (49). However, nothing came of the ambitious plans. After a short stint as CEO at Iconiq, he then moved to Faraday Future in 2019 – one of the most dazzling companies in the industry.
The company, founded in 2014 and based in California, had already presented its first electric model in Las Vegas in 2017, the SUV FF91 was supposed to bring 1050 hp onto the road. Even then, two former BMW top people said goodbye, albeit voluntarily. Ulrich Kranz (64), father of the BMW electric debut i3 and today in the Apple car team; and Stefan Krause (60), once CFO at BMW and Deutsche Bank.
Faraday Future was on the verge of collapse several times. Among others, the controversial Chinese founder Jia Yueting (48) filed for personal bankruptcy in order to get rid of debts worth billions. However, Breitfeld managed to capitalize on the hype surrounding electric cars and get Faraday public. In July 2021, the start-up went public on the Nasdaq via a Spac IPO, raising $1 billion in fresh capital. After that, however, it hardly got any quieter, Faraday was already able to report the first quarterly figures not reporting irregularities on time.
Currently, the management is far behind the plans. The first model, still the FF91, should really hit the market in 2022. However, the start of production has been postponed again. According to the latest figures, the company burned $398 million in the first nine months of the year; the cash reserves have pulverized: from more than half a billion at the end of 2021, 32 million dollars were still left at the end of September. The stock market value has practically collapsed, shares are currently trading for less than 50 cents, the whole company is only worth around 160 million dollars.
The Faraday Board has examined the company’s performance since the IPO, it said at the emergency meeting on Saturday. As a result, the decision was made to “remove” Breitfeld, according to the official press release. Any thank-you formula is completely missing in it.
Since Sunday, Breitfeld’s successor has been Chinese-born Chen, who once studied in Wuhan and then made a career for himself in various joint ventures of western car manufacturers in China. Before taking over Faraday’s China business, he worked in senior positions for Chery Jaguar Land Rover. “XF”, as Chen is known in the abbreviation of his first name Xuefeng, is a “top talent in the global automotive industry,” said Chairman Adam He happily. His main task now is to bring the FF91 onto the market, as promised to customers and investors.
According to documents from the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Chen will receive a nice salary package as boss. In addition to a signing fee of $500,000, there is an annual base salary of $900,000 and a possible bonus of $600,000 until the end of the contract in November 2025. In addition, the newcomer will receive share packages worth 2 million dollars in various stages – and depending on certain target values, shares worth another 2 million dollars. He can also subscribe to two million papers for the friendly price of $0.0001. Not bad for a company that hasn’t sold a car yet.