A Wall Street Journal report on Tuesday revealed that the electric-car startup Lucid Motors Inc. has an “undisclosed commitment to build an assembly plant in Saudi Arabia, a potentially costly promise the company made after accepting more than $1 billion in financing from the Saudi Public Investment Fund in 2018.” The promise could be both a “significant investment commitment for the startup” but “also a potential boon for Saudi Arabia,” according to the report by journalists Summer Said and Ben Foldy.
The report says that the promise by Lucid to the PIF was made in exchange for the PIF’s $1 billion investment, long before a recent deal by the company which agreed to a special-purpose acquisition company merger (“SPAC”), a deal that if consummated would allow it to trade publicly later this year. The merger agreement valued the Silicon Valley startup at some $24 billion, according to the WSJ.
From the report:
“Lucid hasn’t discussed the Saudi car plant plans publicly, but at least one big institutional investor that has agreed to invest as part of the SPAC deal was told about them, according to people familiar with the discussion…
“A Lucid Motors spokesperson said it “expects to establish manufacturing facilities in multiple geographies, including Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and potentially Europe in the coming years.” The spokesperson said the company’s “near-term priority” is beginning production later this year at its Arizona facility.”
In January, a Bloomberg report said that Lucid was in talks with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund to build an electric vehicle factory potentially near the Red Sea city of Jeddah.
[Click here to read the full report from the Wall Street Journal]
