Faraday Future's Founder Jia Yueting Gets to Stay as CEO Till Year-End
Dou Shicong
DATE:  Jul 16 2018
/ SOURCE:  Yicai
Faraday Future's Founder Jia Yueting Gets to Stay as CEO Till Year-End Faraday Future's Founder Jia Yueting Gets to Stay as CEO Till Year-End

(Yicai Global) July 16 -- Jia Yueting, the embattled Chinese businessman who founded Faraday Future, will be allowed by its biggest shareholder to keep control over the high-profile electric carmaker until the end of this year.

Jia will remain as chief executive of the US-based auto startup, Xu Jiayin, chairman of Evergrande Group, said on a visit to Faraday Future's car-assembly plant in California on July 13, China's state-backed The Paper reported yesterday. The Chinese real estate giant invested HKD6.7 billion (USD854 million) into the carmaker in June.

Jia has until the end of 2018 to start mass producing Faraday Future's first model, a sport utility vehicle known as the FF91, which is reportedly expected to sell for between USD150,000 and USD300,000 in the US and over CNY2 million (USD299,000) in China, twice the price of Tesla's Model X. Reports claim that if Jia fails to achieve the production target, Evergrande will take control of the business.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States has approved Faraday Future's first financing round of USD2 billion, the company said on June 25, thereby signing off on Evergrande Health Industry Group's 45 percent stake in the auto company. Jia once said a large-scale rollout of vehicles would cost at least USD10 billion. 

Jia is also the founder of Chinese tech conglomerate LeEco, which hit a serious cash crunch in 2016. Jia later headed to the United States to focus on Faraday Future, leaving LeEco's huge debts unpaid.

Editor: Emmi Laine

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Keywords:   Evergrande,FARADAY FUTURE,Xu Jiayin,Jia Yueting