Lordstown Motors’ troubles continue to mount following the EV startup’s SPAC deal and public market debut last year.
Members of the leadership team appear to have sold large amounts of Lordstown stock just before reports of various troubles at the company became public, Car and Driver reports. Five top Lordstown executives — including president Rich Schmidt, now former CFO Julio Rodriguez, and propulsion head Chuan “John” Vo — sold some of their shares worth a total of more than $8 million in early February when the stock was worth around $24 a share. Today, it’s worth around $10.
The reason this is all news, other than the fact that Lordstown is dealing with the abrupt departure of its founder and CEO, among other issues, is that something else was happening in early February: news was getting out that one of the prototypes for the company’s all-electric pickup truck, the Endurance, caught fire in early January.
Lordstown began trading shares after a Nasdaq debut in October 2020 as part of a reverse merger with DiamondPeak Holdings.
Lordstown reaffirmed last week that it will indeed start building the Endurance in September and deliver the first units to customers in early 2022. Read more.
