Slate Auto, the electric vehicle startup backed by Jeff Bezos, has replaced its CEO months before launching an affordable electric truck.
Former Amazon Marketplace vice president Peter Faricy is the company’s new head, starting Monday, Slate spokesperson Jeff Jablansky told TechCrunch. Most recently, Faricy served as an advisor to McKinsey & Co. and Bessemer Venture Partners. Newsweek, which first reported the hire, said Farici left his job at Bessemer to join Slate.
Jablanski said Christine Berman, Slate Auto’s first CEO and longtime Chrysler employee, is now president of the vehicle division. Berman was Slate’s first employer. As TechCrunch first revealed last year, the company is still a top-secret project called Re:Car, launched within a Massachusetts-based manufacturing incubator called Re:Build Manufacturing.
Berman stands out not only because she is one of only two female CEOs running a U.S. automaker, but also because she has been the face of the company since Slate came out of stealth in April 2025. She has appeared in many of Slate’s promotional videos over the past year, including one last month in which the company hinted that it would finally announce pricing for its basic electric trucks in June.
In his new role, Berman will “do whatever it takes” to deliver trucks “on time and on budget,” Jablanski said.
The company, which has raised about $700 million from Bezos and other wealthy backers, at one point advertised that its electric trucks would cost “under $20,000” before Congress and the Trump administration repealed the federal EV tax credit. The company is currently targeting starting prices for its trucks in the mid-$20,000 range. Buyers will be able to customize it in all sorts of ways, including spending more money to convert it into an SUV.
Jablanski said Farici took over as CEO at a time when Slate was beginning to convert its refundable pre-order list, which currently stands at about 160,000 people, into vehicle orders.
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“Peter’s experience building Amazon marketplaces was really important to us,” Jablanski said.
While a CEO change so early in a company’s history may come as a shock, it’s no surprise that the company hired a former Amazon executive. Bezos helped fund the startup, as did former Amazon executive Diego Piacentini. The head of Bezos’ family office has a seat on the board. One of Slate’s co-founders is Jeff Wilke, former CEO of Amazon Consumer. And the heads of Slate’s mobility, UX/UI, e-commerce, fleet sales, and human resources teams all previously worked at Amazon.
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