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Lucid overhauls its entire C-suite under new CEO after 18% layoffs

Lucid is replacing almost its entire executive team under new CEO Silvio Napoli, bringing in a new CFO, CTO, and three other C-level leaders in a single announcement.

The overhaul lands just over a week after the struggling EV maker cut 18% of its workforce and pulled its 2026 production guidance.

A near-total leadership reset

Lucid (NASDAQ: LCID) announced the changes today alongside its Q2 production and delivery numbers, framing them as a move to “simplify the organization, strengthening leadership, enforcing accountability and aligning our structure with the priorities that matter most.” The company says the reshuffle halves the number of direct reports to the CEO.

The list of new faces is long. Alexander De Bock is joining as Chief Financial Officer, arriving from TI Automotive, where he was CFO through a cost-focused turnaround. He replaces Taoufiq Boussaid, who is departing after a handover and will support the company through its Q2 earnings.

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Raja Ramana Macha is coming in as Chief Technology Officer, responsible for technology strategy and engineering execution. He was most recently EVP and CTO at Eaton. Billy Hayes joins as Chief Customer Officer with responsibility for sales, service, and marketing, plus regional P&L for the US, Middle East, and Europe. He spent 25 years at Nissan and Stellantis.

Hugo Martinho is joining August 1 as Chief Transformation Officer, a newly emphasized role overseeing a new “Lucid Business Process” function. He comes from Schindler Group — the Swiss elevator maker that Napoli himself ran before taking the Lucid job.

Spinning out a technology unit for robotaxis and AI

The most strategically interesting appointment is Kay Stepper, named President of Lucid Technologies and Chief Digital Officer, with accountability for robotaxis, AI, autonomy, ADAS, and enterprise IT. Stepper, a Bosch and Qualcomm veteran, will lead Lucid Technologies as a “distinct business unit focused on strategic partnerships and advanced technologies.”

That structure signals Lucid intends to carve out its autonomy and software work as a separate value driver — a notable move given the expanded Uber robotaxi partnership tied to Napoli’s arrival, and the company’s recent rollout of hands-free driving on the Gravity SUV. Lucid also promoted Christian Appel to VP of Program Management.

Napoli, the former Schindler chairman and CEO, took over as Lucid’s permanent chief executive on June 1 after a 14-month search. He is only the second CEO in Lucid’s history, following founder Peter Rawlinson’s abrupt departure in February 2025. Interim CEO Marc Winterhoff, who had returned as COO, left on June 22 when the company eliminated the COO role entirely.

The numbers behind the shake-up

The leadership purge follows a brutal stretch. On June 22, Lucid announced it would cut roughly 18% of its workforce — around 1,500 jobs, its second major round of layoffs this year — for about $158 million in annualized savings. It eliminated the entire second shift at its Casa Grande, Arizona factory and withdrew its 2026 production guidance of 25,000 to 27,000 vehicles.

Today’s Q2 delivery figures show why the pressure is mounting. Lucid produced 4,774 vehicles and delivered 3,953 in the quarter. Deliveries were up 27.8% from the 3,093 delivered in a supplier-disrupted Q1, and up about 19% from the 3,309 delivered a year ago. But production fell 13% quarter-over-quarter as the company aligns output with weak demand.

For the first half of 2026, Lucid has delivered just over 7,000 vehicles — a pace well short of the growth it had promised before pulling guidance. Lucid will report full Q2 financials, including its closely watched cash burn, on August 4.

Electrek’s Take

This is what a turnaround team assembling in real time looks like. In the span of a couple of weeks, Napoli has eliminated the COO role, cut 18% of staff, withdrawn guidance, and now swapped out the CFO, CTO, customer chief, and more. When a new CEO replaces essentially the entire C-suite this quickly, it’s a clear statement that he didn’t believe the existing team could execute.

The Schindler connections are worth watching. Napoli brought in his former company’s HR chief as Chief Transformation Officer, and the whole vocabulary here feels more classic industrial-operator turnaround language, not Silicon Valley EV-startup language. That’s a deliberate cultural shift for a company that was built around Rawlinson’s engineering-first vision.

The Lucid Technologies spin-out is the part that could actually move the stock. Carving out robotaxis, autonomy, and AI as a distinct unit with its own president is how you set up strategic partnerships, or a future capital raise, around the software story rather than the money-losing hardware business. With the Uber deal already in place, that’s the most credible growth narrative Lucid has.

But none of this changes the core problem: Lucid is still delivering fewer than 4,000 cars a quarter and burning cash, and it just admitted it doesn’t know how many vehicles it will build this year. New leadership buys time and Saudi patience. It doesn’t sell more cars. The August 4 earnings call is where we’ll find out whether the new team inherited a fixable business or just a longer runway. Can Napoli’s operators do what the founders couldn’t?

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Avatar for Fred Lambert Fred Lambert

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