Two Faraday Future whistleblowers say the embattled EV business has lied about some of its few sales. They say EV firm founder Jia Yueting "weaponized" the HR department to punish against anyone who reports these misrepresentations.
Jose Guerrero and Victoria Xie, company employees, filed two lawsuits in Los Angeles Superior Court against Faraday Future, Jia, and Nan Yang, the company's head of HR, alleging wrongful termination, breach of contract, and emotional distress. Both cases underline Faraday Future's central tension: that its founder, Jia, purportedly continues to demand influence over the company despite being sidelined in 2022 by an internal probe.
The previously undisclosed claims come as Faraday Future has proceeded to furlough and lay off employees to save what little cash it has, virtually driving it out of its Los Angeles headquarters after missing repeated lease payments. This is happening when the SEC and DOJ are investigating the corporation.
FFC "FF takes the allegations made in these two lawsuits by previous employees very seriously," an emailed representative said. "FF believes on merit it has strong defenses to the alleged claims and will pursue all avenues and remedies available to protect and defend itself and the Company's dedicated employees against all allegations including character attacks."
Jia emailed TechCrunch: “I believe the said complaints contain many false statements and defamatory allegations. I will counter-sue the parties.” Guerrero and Xie's attorneys declined to comment beyond the filing's accusations.
Fraudulent sales and retaliation On December 6, 2023, Guerrero and Xie wrote an internal whistleblower letter to Faraday Future's general counsel alleging that the firm misled about the FF91's first four public sales.
Guerrero, Faraday Future's senior director of sales and aftersales, and Xie, its "go-to-market project manager and launch manager," say the business publicized these deliveries before the sales process was complete. Three of the four were never fully paid for, according to the whistleblower letter, while the fourth was paid for "more than 60 days after the'sale' was announced." Faraday Future claims to have delivered 10 automobiles in 2023.
Guerrero and Xie said Jia's department leadership "continued to cite the need to announce sales to boost the Company’s share price and subjected staff who raised compliance concerns to retaliatory HR actions."
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