Faraday Future is in the headlines again. The beleaguered electric carmaker has filed a lawsuit against a startup company founded by former executives that used to work for the company. The lawsuit specifically accuses former Faraday CFO Stefan Krause and CTO Ulrich Kranz of stealing trade secrets and poaching talent away from the company. Krause and Kranz eventually started Evelozcity Inc., a company that touts itself as an electric vehicle manufacturer that's looking to address the "future needs of urban mobility." Sound familiar?

Will there come a day when we’ll actually receive some good news come out of Faraday Future? It seems so long ago that something like it has happened. The lawsuit, which was filed at the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, accuses Krause and Kranz of stealing trade secrets and soliciting 20 former employees to join a startup electric car company that would compete against Faraday Future.

According to the complaint, employees who left Faraday to join Evelozcity were encouraged to get as much information as they could from the company they were leaving. This included downloading thousands of confidential documents and so-called “trade secrets,” ranging from vendor databases to technical documents.

Not surprisingly, Evelozcity responded to the complaint by debunking all of its claims. “This complaint continues Faraday’s pattern of hurling false and inflammatory accusations against us,” the new startup said in a statement. “We will respond to the many recklessly inaccurate allegations in this desperate lawsuit at the appropriate time.”

Faraday Future’s status as a sinking ship is well-documented, so it wasn’t a shock when its CFO and CTO left the company to look for greener pastures. Krause, in particular, didn’t last long in Faraday. He was hired in March 2017 to help raise funding and oversee its finances as the company’s CFO. But after only seven months — or eight months, depending on who you ask — Krause stepped down and left the company to start his own electric car startup, Evelozcity.

The quick turnaround from his departure at Faraday to the launch of Evelozcity sits at the heart of Faraday’s claims. According to the company, Evelozcity was incorporated on or around Nov. 7, a day after Krause asked Faraday’s then-head of human resources to back-date his resignation by two weeks. For his part, Kraus says that he actually left the company the month before.

Whichever side is telling the truth, the lawsuit paints yet another picture on the sorry state of affairs happening within Faraday Future. If it’s not news about the company struggling to raise cash, it’s news about shutting down its hyped gigafactory in Nevada. If it’s not that, it’s news about founder Jia Yueting’s crumbling business empire. Now it’s about a lawsuit against two former executives who may or may not have stolen trade secrets from the electric carmaker. This is the reality of what’s become of Faraday Future.

References

Read our full review on the 2018 Faraday Future FF 91.