Faraday Future Paid $7.5 Million to Jia Yueting-Affiliated Companies During SEC Investigation
Electric vehicle startup Faraday Future paid approximately $7.5 million to a company controlled by its founder, Jia Yueting, in 2025. This was disclosed in the company's latest regulatory filings. The struggling EV company delivered only 4 vehicles and incurred nearly $400 million in losses in the same year it made these payments, and has since shifted to selling low-priced vans imported from China and robot products.
These transactions occurred while Faraday Future was still under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), with a focus on “related party transactions” between the company and entities controlled or affiliated with Jia Yueting. The SEC was also reviewing whether Faraday Future accurately disclosed Jia Yueting’s actual control over the company when it went public via SPAC in 2021, and whether the company made false statements in 2023 regarding early electric vehicle sales.
The four-year investigation was terminated by the SEC in March of this year, although last year the SEC had notified Faraday Future, Jia Yueting, and other executives that enforcement staff had recommended taking enforcement action. The investigation’s conclusion came amid a broader decline in white-collar crime enforcement in the U.S. during the second term of the Trump administration.
According to Faraday Future’s annual proxy statement released on Thursday, the company paid various amounts to an entity called FF Global Partners LLC, including a monthly “consulting fee” of $100,000, a “bonus” of $2 million, and $1.7 million to repay a loan FF Global had provided to Faraday Future. The filing did not explain the use of the remaining approximately $2.6 million. Faraday Future did not respond to requests for comment on the matter.
Faraday Future described FF Global in the filing as an “affiliate” of Jia Yueting and has previously stated that Jia has “significant influence” over the company. FF Global has five “voting managers,” one of whom is Jia Yueting, and other members include his business partners and a family member—his nephew, Jerry Wang.
Documents show that Jerry Wang currently serves as president of Faraday Future while also receiving a six-figure salary from FF Global, and his wife is head of the legal department at FF Global, also earning a six-figure income. FF Global also has a similar “consulting agreement” with AIXC, a cryptocurrency holding company operated by Jerry Wang and advised by Jia Yueting, while the law firm where Wang’s wife works provides legal advice to AIXC.
FF Global is also a significant shareholder of Faraday Future and, along with Jia Yueting, effectively controls almost all aspects of the company’s operations, to the point where Faraday Future listed this as a risk factor in its most recent annual report. The company wrote in the report that Jia Yueting and FF Global, which has significant influence over him, “have control over our management, business, and operations and may use this control in a manner that is inconsistent with our business or financial objectives and strategies, or otherwise not in our best interests.”
FF Global also played a key role in Jia Yueting’s “return to power” after Faraday Future went public. In 2021, after Faraday Future went public through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), the newly formed public company’s board of directors immediately launched an internal investigation into Jia Yueting’s financial dealings inside and outside the company, as well as disclosures regarding related transactions and control during the merger process. In early 2022, the board marginalized him after finding that the company’s public statements about Jia Yueting’s control were misleading, and handed the investigation results over to the SEC, which then formally launched an investigation.
Meanwhile, FF Global continued to pressure the board throughout 2022, attempting to replace some directors with more “friendly” individuals. This movement escalated to the point where several directors received death threats, and some directors ultimately resigned, with “concern for personal safety” being one of the reasons. Following this process, Jia Yueting returned to management last year, being appointed as co-CEO and is now Faraday Future’s sole CEO.
FF Global is not the only Jia Yueting-affiliated entity to which Faraday Future has paid or plans to pay money. The company disclosed in the proxy filing that it also paid $700,000 last year to a loan company affiliated with Jia, and still owes approximately $8.5 million to Leshi Information Technology Co. Ltd., an affiliate of the LeEco ecosystem, which is categorized as “advertising services” expenses.