On April 15, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) disclosed in a document that FF’s board of directors had approved additional remedies on April 12, including the removal of Jia Yueting, founder and former CEO. Jia Yueting was replaced by Matthias aydt, the former senior vice president in charge of business development.

Radar finance and economics article edited by Zhang Kaijing

The investigation of Jia Yueting’s electric vehicle company Faraday future (hereinafter referred to as “FF”) has made the latest progress.

On April 15, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) disclosed in a document that FF’s board of directors had approved additional remedies on April 12, including the removal of Jia Yueting, founder and former CEO. Jia Yueting was replaced by Matthias aydt, the former senior vice president in charge of business development.

It is understood that since then, Jia Yueting will continue to serve as the company’s chief product officer and user ecosystem officer, and report to the executive chairman of FF. Its main responsibilities will be limited to product and travel ecology, artificial intelligence and advanced R & D technology.

In addition to Jia Yueting, FF also took a series of disciplinary actions, including dismissal, against other non-executive employees, but did not disclose their names.

Jia Yueting’s job change is only a microcosm of FF’s recent turmoil. Radar financial combing found that various signs showed that Jia Yueting was drifting away from his dream.

“A friend advised me to give up FF, sell my equity, and then ‘hide’ in the United States in the way of bankruptcy liquidation, but he still doesn’t know me enough. Giving up and avoiding will never be an option in my life.” From Jia Yueting’s statements in public for many times, FF is his hope to turn over after LETV’s thunder.

In 2021, FF car building process has continuously sent positive signals. In March of that year, FF announced that it had completed the winter test and verification of FF 91 pre production vehicle in the second quarter, and officially confirmed that it was on the market in the first half of 2022; In July, FF was officially listed on NASDAQ. Jia Yueting himself also appeared at the bell ringing scene and took FF 91.

The day after FF went public, it donated one million yuan to Henan Province, which was in the midst of floods and floods; Less than a week later, Jia Yueting revealed that the 300 invitation limited edition FF 91 open to a very small number of spire users around the world had been sold out; One month after listing, Jia Yueting even opened champagne with FF Global CEO Bi Fukang to celebrate the 3653 km long-distance road test of FF 91 in the United States.

But the good times did not last long, and bad news soon followed.

In November, FF postponed its financial report for the third quarter because J capital, a short seller, accused FF of fraud, including falsely reporting the booking amount of FF 91 and Jia Yueting’s improper profit.

J capital said that through the on-site visit and research, the analysis of the company’s financial report data and technical ability, it came to the conclusion that “FF company can’t sell even one car”.

Since then, FF company has established a special committee of the board of directors and appointed a law firm to conduct an independent investigation into the allegations in the short selling report.

It is worth mentioning that for J capital’s report, Jia Yueting publicly responded that “cold rice and hot speculation are nonsense” and reminded J capital to be careful, “it’s not the first time you’ve been beaten in the face”. However, later results showed that it was Jia Yueting himself who was beaten in the face.

In February 2022, the investigation results released by the special committee of FF’s board of directors showed that for FF’s first model ff91, the company claimed to have received more than 14000 orders. However, the investigation found that 14000 were free advance orders and only 300 paid advance orders.

In addition, the special committee believes that it underestimates Jia Yueting’s participation in FF.

In 2019, Jia Yueting announced his resignation as CEO of FF and transferred to cpuo (chief product & user experience officer) of FF. However, the survey found that Jia Yueting controlled the development of FF by arranging relatives within the management of FF, and had a strong voice within FF.

After the publication of the survey results, it also caused turbulence in the internal organizational structure of FF company. Jia Yueting and Bi Fukang were not only cut their salaries by 25%, but also cut their power - Susan Swenson, an independent member of the company’s board of directors, will assume the post of newly established executive chairman, and Bi Fukang and Jia Yueting will report directly to them.

Meanwhile, Wang Jiawei, vice president of FF capital department and nephew of Jia Yueting, was also suspended. The latest news shows that the general who has led the financing projects of FF for many times and played an important role in the successful listing of FF has voluntarily resigned from FF.

However, even at this time, Jia Yueting still did not forget the “picture cake”. At the end of February, FF held an off-line conference of quasi mass production vehicles at its Hanford factory in the United States. At the conference, Jia Yueting and Bi Fukang introduced the production progress and final mass production time of FF 91, but they still did not introduce the performance and configuration of mass production vehicles.

In the past three months, because FF focused more on internal investigation, the company did not submit its annual report to the NASDAQ Exchange in time. On April 4, Nasdaq stock exchange sent a notice to FF, saying that its practice of delaying the submission of statements did not comply with the provisions on continued listing. If FF wants to maintain its status as a listed company, the company needs to submit form 10-Q for the third quarter of 2021 and form 10-K as of December 31, 2021 before May 6.

After a series of bad news, FF’s share price has fallen nearly 70% since it was listed in July 2021. The company’s financial situation is also difficult to be optimistic. After the IPO, FF disclosed financial data only once in December 2021. The company expects the net loss in the third quarter to expand significantly to $280 million, compared with a net loss of $33 million in the same period last year.

Due to the delay in mass production, FF has been losing money since its establishment. FF said that since its establishment, the company has generated negative cash flow from operating activities. It is expected that the company will have a cumulative loss of about US $2.8 billion as of September 30, 2021.

It is worth noting that the CSRC rejected it on April 15