Ousted Luminar CEO Austin Russell Bids to Buy Back Company
▼ Summary
– Austin Russell has made a bid to acquire Luminar through his new company, Russell AI Labs, five months after being replaced as CEO following an ethics inquiry.
– The proposed acquisition would involve purchasing all outstanding shares of Luminar’s Class A Common Stock, with the company remaining publicly traded and potentially merging with another automotive technology firm.
– Russell’s proposal was submitted on October 14 at the suggestion of certain shareholders and invitation of board members, though specific names were not disclosed.
– Russell was replaced as CEO in May after a board ethics inquiry, with no details provided about the findings, leading to multiple shareholder lawsuits over the handling of the matter.
– Russell co-founded Russell AI Labs in September with partners including a Mercedes-Benz executive and has previous experience with takeover attempts, such as a failed bid for Forbes in 2023.
Just five months after his departure as chief executive, Austin Russell, the billionaire founder of Luminar Technologies, has launched a bid to purchase the entire lidar company. The unexpected move was revealed in a regulatory filing submitted by Russell early Friday, outlining a plan for his newly formed entity, Russell AI Labs, to acquire every outstanding share of Luminar’s Class A Common Stock. The specific financial terms of the proposed transaction were not disclosed.
According to the filing, should the acquisition proceed, Luminar would maintain its status as a publicly traded entity. The document also suggests a potential future strategy where Russell AI Labs might purchase a larger, global automotive technology firm and merge it with Luminar. This would create what is being referred to internally as “Luminar 2.0,” a unified technology platform. Russell himself is also considering a personal investment in this newly combined company if the merger materializes.
The proposal was formally presented to Luminar on October 14. The filing indicates the offer came at the suggestion of certain Luminar shareholders and followed an invitation from specific, though unnamed, members of the company’s board of directors. Both Luminar and Russell AI Labs have so far declined to comment on the development.
This sudden bid to regain control is as surprising as Russell’s initial ousting back in May. The company announced his resignation on May 19, coinciding with its first-quarter earnings report. Luminar appointed Paul Ricci, a former Xerox executive, to take over the CEO role at that time.
The company provided minimal explanation for the leadership change, stating only that its audit committee had completed an inquiry into the “code of business conduct and ethics.” To this day, Luminar has not publicly revealed the findings of that investigation. The opaque nature of Russell’s removal and its disclosure has prompted multiple lawsuits from shareholders.
This is not Russell’s first foray into a major acquisition attempt. Last year, he led a high-profile bid to purchase the media outlet Forbes. That effort ultimately collapsed after reports indicated some investors in the acquisition group failed to provide the committed funding. The process was further complicated by alleged connections to a Russian oligarch.
Despite stepping down as CEO, Russell has retained his position on Luminar’s board of directors. The original announcement stated he would remain available to the new CEO for consultation on transition and technology matters. However, his engagement appears limited in at least one significant area: public records show he has not signed any of the company’s SEC filings in his capacity as a board member since his departure.
In the intervening months, Russell co-founded Russell AI Labs in September. His partners in the venture are Markus Schäfer, the Chief Technology Officer and a board member of Mercedes-Benz Group AG, and Murtaza Ahmed, a former partner with the SoftBank Vision Fund. The new enterprise states its mission is to back and build transformative companies in the artificial intelligence and frontier technology sectors. It has already made a substantial move, acquiring a $300 million stake in Emergence, a company specializing in agentic AI.
(Source: TechCrunch)
