Lucid Motors has finally found a new CEO in long-time industrial boss Silvio Napoli, marking the end of a more than year-long search following the abrupt resignation of former CEO Peter Rawlinson.
The company said Tuesday that Napoli, who has spent the past several decades in various leadership positions at elevator and escalator company Schindler Group, will rejoin the board of directors.
Alongside the CEO appointment, Lucid said it received another $200 million commitment from Uber, which has agreed to buy 25,000 more robot-ready versions of Lucid’s midsize vehicle. That brings Uber’s committed investment in Lucid Motors to $500 million, and its minimum order for 35,000 vehicles.
Eventually, Lucid’s largest shareholder, the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, bought another $550 million worth of its shares.
The announcements come in the midst of a very important year for Lucid Motors. The company is currently trying to increase the production and sales of its second model, the Gravity SUV, after struggling to find a large market for the Air sedan. Lucid also plans to release the first of three cars built on its midsize platform, which will allow it to target buyers looking to spend around $50,000 on a new car.
The company has taken drastic measures to ensure that it produces that car. In February, it decided to lay off 12% of its workforce, TechCrunch reported. On Tuesday, Lucid Motors said in a regulatory filing that it recently “reduced the number of contractors” at its Arizona plant “to improve cost efficiencies.”
Lucid Motors has been without a chief executive since February 2025, when longtime leader Rawlinson abruptly left the company. Its chief executive, Marc Winterhoff, has served as interim CEO since then, and had plans to take over the CEO role, as TechCrunch previously reported, while the company casts a much wider net for a replacement. But Winterhoff’s oversight coincided with several quality issues during the launch of its Gravity SUV.
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Napoli will not start as CEO right away. You still need to obtain “right to work in the US,” according to the regulatory filing. Until that happens, he will be a “managing director” of the board of Lucid Motors under a Swiss employment agreement (where he resides). Lucid expects Napoli to receive approval to operate in the US “in the coming weeks,” after which Winterhoff will resume his role as CEO.
Napoli stands to make more money as Lucid’s new CEO. He starts with a base salary of $1.5 million, and is given $1 million to relocate to the U.S. He is also awarded a bonus package, a stock grant worth about $10 million, and a performance-based stock package worth tens of millions of dollars.
Uber’s new commitment comes just a day after the ride-hailing giant and its autonomous vehicle partner Nuro began testing modified Lucid Gravity SUVs for the luxury robot service in San Francisco later this year. Uber began working with Lucid Motors and Nuro last July, when it made a $300 million investment and agreed to buy at least 20,000 Gravity SUVs.
Lucid Motors revealed at an investor day event earlier this year that it was close to a deal with Uber to create a similar program for its more affordable cars. The finalized agreement announced on Tuesday reduces the minimum number of orders for the Gravity SUV to 10,000.
The Saudi investment is the latest in a long line of cash injections from the Kingdom to Lucid that began as a capital-saving investment for the company in 2018.
