Lucid Motors has been majority-owned by the wealth fund — known as the Public Investment Fund, or PIF — 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.
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.
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’s attempt to buy the social media company. But he quickly reversed course and cozied up to Musk and became the second-largest shareholder of Twitter after Musk took it private. (It’s unclear whether he has retained that stake through the company’s evolution into X and its subsequent merger with xAI, and now into SpaceX.)
He also owns stakes in Snap and Deezer and is often referred to as the “Arabian Warren Buffett,” according to his website.
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