Faraday Future paid $7.5M to firm linked to founder Jia Yueting
▼ Summary
– Faraday Future paid about $7.5 million in 2025 to FF Global Partners LLC, a company controlled by founder Jia Yueting, while delivering only four vehicles and losing nearly $400 million that year.
– The SEC dropped its four-year investigation into related party transactions and Jia’s control over Faraday Future in March 2025, despite having recommended enforcement action the prior year.
– The payments included $100,000 monthly consulting fees, a $2 million bonus, and $1.7 million in loan repayments, with $2.6 million unexplained in the filing.
– FF Global, which Jia significantly influences, controls Faraday Future’s management and operations, and the company warns this control may conflict with its objectives.
– Jia was reinstalled as CEO in 2024 after FF Global’s campaign to replace board members with his allies, which included death threats that led to resignations.
Faraday Future funneled approximately $7.5 million to an entity tied to its founder Jia Yueting during 2025, according to a newly released regulatory filing. The beleaguered electric vehicle startup made these payments in a year marked by delivering just four cars and posting losses approaching $400 million. The company has since shifted its strategy toward importing and selling lower-cost vans and robots from China.
The transactions occurred while the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was actively investigating Faraday Future over what it called “related party transactions” between the company and organizations linked to or controlled by Jia, as the startup’s own filings have disclosed. The SEC also examined whether Faraday Future accurately portrayed Jia’s level of authority when it went public in 2021 and whether it misrepresented early EV sales in 2023.
The SEC closed its four-year probe in March, as TechCrunch first reported, even though the agency had previously sent notices to Faraday Future, Jia, and other executives stating that investigators were recommending an enforcement action. The investigation’s conclusion comes amid a notable decline in white-collar crime enforcement during the second Trump administration.
The new payments came to light in Faraday Future’s annual proxy filing, released Thursday. The document shows the company paid a combination of monthly $100,000 “consulting” fees, a $2 million “bonus payment”, and $1.7 million to cover loans from FF Global Partners LLC. The filing does not explain the remaining $2.6 million in payments. Faraday Future did not respond to a request for comment.
In the proxy filing, Faraday Future describes FF Global as an “affiliate” of Jia. Previous filings have stated that Jia exercises “significant influence” over the LLC. FF Global has five “voting managers,” including Jia, along with business associates and a family member,his nephew Jerry Wang.
Wang, who serves as a president at Faraday Future, receives a six-figure salary from FF Global, according to the filing. His wife, who heads FF Global’s legal department, also draws a salary from the entity. FF Global maintains a similar consulting arrangement with AIXC, a crypto holding company run by Wang and advised by Jia. Wang’s wife’s law firm also provides consulting services to AIXC.
FF Global is a major shareholder in Faraday Future and, together with Jia, controls nearly every aspect of the EV maker. Faraday Future lists this as a risk factor in its most recent annual filing.
“Jia and FF Global, over which Mr. Jia exercises significant influence, have control over our management, business and operations, and may use this control in ways that are not aligned with our business or financial objectives or strategies or that are otherwise inconsistent with our interests,” the company wrote earlier this year.
FF Global also played a key role in restoring Jia’s power after the company went public in 2021. Shortly after Faraday Future merged with a special purpose acquisition company, the new public board launched an investigation into Jia’s movement of money in and out of the company, as well as disclosures made during the merger process.
In early 2022, the board sidelined Jia,who has been blacklisted in China for financial fraud,after determining that Faraday Future had misrepresented his control over the company. The board then referred its findings to the SEC, which opened its investigation soon after.
Throughout 2022, FF Global campaigned to replace certain board members with those friendly to Jia. The effort became so intense that multiple board members received death threats. Those members ultimately resigned, partly out of fear for their lives. Jia was reinstated as co-CEO last year and now serves as Faraday Future’s sole CEO.
FF Global is not the only Jia-related entity that Faraday Future has paid or plans to pay. The proxy filing states that the company paid $700,000 to a loan company associated with Jia last year. It also owes $8.5 million to Leshi Information Technology Co. Ltd., one of the companies tied to his failed Chinese tech conglomerate LeEco, for “advertising services.”
(Source: TechCrunch)
