Faraday Future running out of money: Report

Faraday Future’s planned FF91 SUV.
Faraday Future

• The electric vehicle startup Faraday
  Future is close to running out of money as it forces some
  workers to take unpaid leave,
  The Verge reports. 
• Faraday Future CEO Jia Yueting reportedly said in an
  email to employees that workers who started on or after May 1
  of this year will be placed on unpaid leave
  until the automaker receives new funding.
• Nick Sampson, one of the automaker’s founders,
  reportedly resigned on Tuesday, saying Faraday Future is
  “effectively insolvent” in an email to employees.
• Faraday Future did not immediately respond to Business
  Insider’s request for comment.

The electric vehicle startup Faraday Future is close to running
out of money as it forces some workers to take unpaid leave,

The Verge reports. 

According to the publication, the automaker has halted some
operations at its headquarters in Gardena, California, and
factory in Hanford, California. Faraday Future CEO Jia Yueting
reportedly said in an email to employees that workers who started
on or after May 1 of this year will be placed on unpaid leave
until the automaker receives new funding. Full-time employees who
started before May 1 can continue working on a reduced salary of
$50,000 per year and hourly employees who have been working for
over six months can choose to remain at Faraday Future for
minimum wage, Yueting reportedly said.

Nick Sampson, one of the automaker’s founders, reportedly
resigned on Tuesday, saying Faraday Future is “effectively
insolvent” in an email to employees.

“The company is effectively insolvent in both its financial
and personnel assets, it will at best will [sic] limp along for
the foreseeable future. I feel that my role in Faraday Future is
no long [sic] a path that I can follow, so I will leave the
company, effective immediately,” Sampson reportedly wrote.

Faraday Future did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s
request for comment.

A Faraday Future representative told Business Insider last
week, following a report from
The Verge, that it would
reduce the wages of hourly and salaried employees by 20%
while laying off an undisclosed number of workers. The
representative added that Yueting would lower his salary to $1 as
some members of the automaker’s leadership team decreased their
salaries by more than 20%.

Faraday Future was founded in 2014 and has struggled to build its
planned FF91 electric SUV amid financial concerns and a
battle with investor Evergrande Health Industry Group over
funding. Faraday Future has faced lawsuits and liens from
suppliers who claim they have not been paid, and the first
pre-production version of the FF91 caught fire hours after it was
shown to employees and their families, according to The
Verge.

Yueting, who is also the founder and chairman of the Chinese tech
company LeEco, last year had $182
million in assets frozen by the Chinese
government because of unfulfilled loan payments.