Slate Auto, the electrical automobile startup backed by Jeff Bezos, has changed its CEO months forward of the launch of its inexpensive electrical truck.
Former Amazon Market vice chairman Peter Faricy is the brand new particular person answerable for the corporate, and he began on Monday, Slate spokesperson Jeff Jablansky informed TechCrunch. Most lately, Faricy had been an advisor at McKinsey and Bessemer Enterprise Companions. Faricy left the function at Bessemer to affix Slate, in keeping with Newsweek, which first reported the rent.
Slate Auto’s first CEO, longtime Chrysler veteran Christine Barman, is now the President of Autos, in keeping with Jablansky. Barman was Slate’s first rent. The corporate was nonetheless a secretive undertaking known as re:Automotive that was began inside a producing incubator primarily based in Massachusetts known as re:Construct Manufacturing, as TechCrunch first revealed final yr.
Barman stood out not solely as a result of she was of solely two ladies CEOs working a U.S. automaker, however she had turn into the face of the corporate because it emerged from stealth in April 2025. She was featured in most of the promotional movies Slate has produced previously yr, together with one last month the place she teased that the corporate would lastly reveal the worth of its primary electrical truck in June.
In her new function, Barman goes to do “every thing we’d like” to ship its truck “on time and on price range,” in keeping with Jablansky.
The corporate, which has raised round $700 million from Bezos and different rich backers, at one level promoted that its electrical truck would begin at “beneath $20,000” earlier than Congress and the Trump administration took away the federal EV tax credit score. It’s now focusing on the mid-$20,000 vary for the beginning value of its truck. Consumers will have the ability to customise it in all types of the way, together with changing it into an SUV, for more cash.
Faricy has turn into CEO at a time when Slate is about to start out changing its listing of refundable preorders — which is now about 160,000 individuals lengthy — into automobile orders, in keeping with Jablansky.
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“Peter’s expertise constructing Amazon Market was actually essential for us,” Jablansky stated.
Altering CEOs so early within the firm’s historical past might come as a shock, though it’s not shocking that the corporate tapped a former Amazon govt. Bezos helped fund the startup, as did former Amazon govt Diego Piacentini. Bezos’ household workplace head has a board seat. One in every of Slate’s co-founders is Jeff Wilke, who was the Amazon Client CEO. And the heads of Slate’s mobility, UX/UI, e-commerce, fleet gross sales, and HR groups all used to work at Amazon.
