Saudi prince buys 5% stake in Lucid Motors
Saudi prince buys 5% stake in Lucid Motors
沙特王子购入 Lucid Motors 5% 股份
Prince Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud, a member of the Saudi royal family, has purchased a 5% stake in Lucid Motors, increasing the Kingdom’s overall ownership of the electric vehicle company. A new filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission published Tuesday shows that the billionaire prince recently purchased a little more than 19 million shares. 沙特王室成员阿尔瓦利德·本·塔拉勒·阿勒沙特王子（Prince Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud）已购入 Lucid Motors 5% 的股份，进一步增加了沙特王国对这家电动汽车公司的整体持股比例。周二发布的一份美国证券交易委员会（SEC）文件显示，这位亿万富翁王子近期购入了超过 1900 万股股票。
In a post on X, he wrote that his investment office made the purchase when Lucid’s market cap was below $2 billion. That happened on July 14, when an electric vehicle blog published a report claiming that Lucid was considering either filing for bankruptcy protection or being taken private by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. Lucid strenuously denied the reports, and the company’s stock price has since rebounded. 他在 X（原推特）上发文称，其投资办公室是在 Lucid 市值低于 20 亿美元时进行此次收购的。当时是 7 月 14 日，一家电动汽车博客发布报道称，Lucid 正在考虑申请破产保护，或被沙特阿拉伯的主权财富基金私有化。Lucid 强烈否认了这些报道，此后公司股价已出现回升。
“We don’t comment on individual investments, but we are aware and appreciate the independent vote of confidence,” Lucid Motors’ chief communications officer Nick Twork said in a statement to TechCrunch. Lucid Motors 首席通讯官 Nick Twork 在给 TechCrunch 的声明中表示：“我们不对个人投资发表评论，但我们知晓并感谢这种独立的信任投票。”
The share purchase comes in the middle of a major restructuring effort kicked off by Lucid’s newly appointed CEO, Silvio Napoli, who cut 18% of the workforce in June in an effort to “simplify the company.” That followed a similarly large layoff earlier this year before Napoli took over. 此次股份收购正值 Lucid 新任首席执行官 Silvio Napoli 启动重大重组之际。为了“精简公司”，Napoli 在 6 月份裁减了 18% 的员工。在此之前，Napoli 上任前今年早些时候也进行过同样规模的裁员。
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. 自 2018 年首次投资以来，Lucid Motors 一直由沙特主权财富基金（Public Investment Fund，简称 PIF）控股。那次投资发生在沙特阿拉伯考虑（但最终放弃）将特斯拉私有化的计划之后。自 2021 年这家电动汽车制造商与一家特殊目的收购公司（SPAC）合并以来，PIF 一直持有 Lucid Motors 约 60% 的股份；该交易使 Lucid 成功上市并筹集了 40 亿美元资金。
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. 自 Lucid Motors 上市以来，沙特方面一直是其主要的资金来源。随着该公司在努力开拓美国及海外大众电动汽车市场过程中面临困境，沙特持续购入股票并提供数十亿美元的贷款。
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. 阿尔瓦利德·本·塔拉勒王子在投资美国科技领域方面有着悠久的历史。通过其控股公司，他曾是 Twitter 上市期间的主要股东。2022 年，他最初对埃隆·马斯克收购该社交媒体公司的企图表示反对，但随后迅速改变立场并向马斯克靠拢，在马斯克将 Twitter 私有化后，他成为了该公司的第二大股东。（目前尚不清楚在公司演变为 X、随后与 xAI 合并以及现在进入 SpaceX 的过程中，他是否保留了该股份。）据其网站介绍，他还持有 Snap 和 Deezer 的股份，并常被称为“阿拉伯的沃伦·巴菲特”。