The board of troubled electric vehicle startup Faraday Future has appointed founder Jia Yueting as the company’s co-CEO three years after being sidelined after an internal investigation into allegations of fraud.
Jia will work with current CEO Matthias Aydt and oversee Faraday’s finance, legal and supply chain team, the company announced at a press conference Thursday. AYDT was a longtime future employee of Faraday, once on probation after offering to pay Faraday’s future board members up to $700,000 and resigning in the middle of the company’s months-long power struggle.
Jia’s appointment comes just a month after Faraday Future appointed Jia’s ne Jerry Wang as president of an EV startup. Wang resigned in 2022 as a result of an internal investigation, as he “did not cooperate with the investigation,” according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Faraday Future was founded by JIA in 2014 and built the success of electronics and media streaming empires in China.
That empire collapsed and Jia excluded herself to the United States to focus on Faraday’s future. The company has spent over $3 billion over the past decade to develop an ultra-luxurious EV called the FF91. However, it has only been sold about 12 units so far, and has been charged in a lawsuit that misrepresents some of those sales.