Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund agreed to invest more than $1 billion in Lucid Motors.
The funding will enable Lucid of Silicon Valley to achieve the commercial launch of its Lucid Air electric vehicle in 2020, PIF said Monday. Lucid joins Daimler-owned Mercedes, BMW and Volkswagen’s Audi and Porsche brands in the battle for dominance in the market for premium EVs.
Tesla shares initially dropped 2.2 percent on on the news before recovering later Monday in the positive territory.
In August, Tesla founder Elon Musk said the Saudi sovereign wealth fund could help him to take his company private.
The Lucid investment, which PIF said is more than $1 billion but did not give an exact figure, is also part of Saudi Arabia’s plan to build an environmentally friendly economy, to diversify the kingdom away from reliance on crude oil.
