The pinnacle of Jeff Bezos’ household workplace has left the board of administrators of Slate Auto, the electrical car startup backed by the Amazon founder, in keeping with quite a few state filings reviewed by TechCrunch.
Melinda Lewison, who leads investments at Bezos Expeditions, seems to have stepped down sooner or later in the previous few months, paperwork filed with the Delaware, Florida, and Massachusetts secretaries of state present. That leaves Bezos with no direct illustration on Slate’s board as the corporate prepares to place its low-cost electrical truck into manufacturing later this 12 months.
Slate didn’t reply to a number of requests for remark. Lewison and Bezos didn’t reply to emailed requests for remark.
Lewison’s departure raises questions on Bezos’ assist and involvement with the startup at a time when the Amazon founder is now apparently targeted on robotics at his new startup, Venture Prometheus. That firm raised greater than $6 billion late final 12 months and is reportedly searching for $100 billion for a brand new fund targeted on shopping for industrial firms in order to automate them with AI.
The exact stage of Bezos’ involvement in Slate has at all times been tough to divine. The corporate has by no means revealed how a lot cash the Amazon founder contributed in its first funding spherical in 2023, which totaled round $120 million. Slate Auto additionally has not confirmed whether or not Bezos participated within the firm’s Sequence B spherical, which introduced its complete funding to round $700 million.
Final month, Slate introduced a $650 million Sequence C spherical, however solely named one lead investor: TWG World, a agency run by Guggenheim Companions CEO Mark Walter. Los Angeles-based VC agency Slauson & Co, an current investor, confirmed to TechCrunch that it additionally participated.
Chris Barman, Slate’s first rent and its now-former CEO, said onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 that Bezos was “fairly hands-off.”
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“We’ve had interface the place we invited him in and he got here and joined us as soon as alongside the journey, and regarded on the car, and we talked somewhat bit about what the longer term could be,” she mentioned late final 12 months. “However aside from that, he’s very fingers off and actually letting us concentrate on getting the car to market.”
Nonetheless, Slate Auto is loaded with Amazon alumni. It was co-founded by former Amazon Client CEO Jeff Wilke. The automotive startup’s new CEO is Peter Faricy, a former VP of Amazon Market. Lots of the firm’s divisions are led by former Amazon employees.
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