Electric vehicle startup Lucid Motors was scrambling to raise a Series D funding round in 2017. It had courted Ford as a potential investor, but Jia Yueting, the founder of rival EV startup Faraday Future, had quietly amassed around a 30% stake and was essentially blocking new investors. 'Ford will likely be lead in $400m Series D in Lucid. Big strategic move,' Stern wrote to Epstein in emails released last week as part of the Department of Justice's latest disclosure of 3 million documents related to Epstein. Jia 'has massive cash issues' at Faraday, he wrote, and needs to 'sell now to make payroll for his other business.' At the time, legacy automakers and newly minted startups, fueled by the breakthrough success of Tesla and progress by Google's self-driving project, were jumping into electric and autonomous vehicles. And Stern was apparently hungry to take advantage of the resulting deal flow. The documents show he also pitched investments in Faraday Future and in another EV...
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