\n<\/p>\n
Prince Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud, a member of the Saudi royal family, has purchased a 5% stake in Lucid Motors, increasing the Kingdom\u2019s overall ownership of the electric vehicle company.<\/p>\n
A new filing<\/a> with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission published Tuesday shows that the billionaire prince recently purchased a little more than 19 million shares. In a post<\/a> on X, he wrote that his investment office made the purchase when Lucid\u2019s market cap was below $2 billion.<\/p>\n That happened on July 14, when an electric vehicle blog published a report<\/a> claiming that Lucid was considering either filing for bankruptcy protection or being taken private by Saudi Arabia\u2019s sovereign wealth fund. Lucid strenuously denied the reports<\/a>, and the company\u2019s stock price has since rebounded.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t comment on individual investments, but we are aware\u00a0and appreciate the independent vote of confidence,\u201d Lucid Motors\u2019 chief communications officer Nick Twork said in a statement to TechCrunch.<\/p>\n The share purchase comes in the middle of a major restructuring effort kicked off by Lucid\u2019s newly appointed CEO, Silvio Napoli, who cut 18% of the workforce in June in an effort to \u201csimplify the company<\/a>.\u201d That followed a similarly large layoff<\/a> earlier this year before Napoli took over.<\/p>\n Lucid Motors has been majority-owned by the wealth fund \u2014 known as the Public Investment Fund, or PIF \u2014 since its initial investment in 2018. That investment came after Saudi Arabia considered, but ultimately abandoned, plans to take Tesla private. The PIF has owned roughly 60% of Lucid Motors since the EV maker merged with a special purpose acquisition company in 2021, a transaction that brought it to public markets and raised $4 billion.<\/p>\n The Saudis have remained a major source of financial support for Lucid Motors since it went public, buying up shares and lending billions of dollars as the company has struggled to reach a mass market of EV buyers in the U.S. and abroad. <\/p>\n Prince Al Waleed bin Talal has a history of investing in U.S. tech. Through his holding company, he was a major shareholder of Twitter when it was still public. In 2022, he initially balked at Elon Musk\u2019s attempt<\/a> to buy the social media company. But he quickly reversed course and cozied up to Musk<\/a> and became the second-largest shareholder<\/a> of Twitter after Musk took it private. (It\u2019s unclear whether he has retained that stake through the company\u2019s evolution into X and its subsequent merger with xAI, and now into SpaceX.)<\/p>\n He also owns stakes in Snap and Deezer and is often referred to as the \u201cArabian Warren Buffett,\u201d according to his website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission<\/a>. This doesn\u2019t affect our editorial independence.<\/em><\/p>\n