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Faraday Future’s fate questioned after Chinese backer sells Silicon Valley land amid cash crunch
One of Faraday Future’s financial backers, LeEco, the electric vehicle company run by Chinese billionaire Jia Yueting, is selling 49-acre plot of land located in Silicon Valley after purchasing it from Yahoo for $250 million less than a year ago. The parcel is reportedly being sold to Chinese developer Genzon Group for $260 million amid a “big company disease” and cash crunch, according to Reuters.
News of the pending sale is a far departure from the initial plans Jia had for the parcel of land last year. Speaking at a gala event at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, Jia told his audience that the land in Silicon Valley would be used to build the US headquarters for LeEco. “This property will be an EcoCity that houses 12,000 employees,” he claimed at the time.
Jia made his money by building Leshi Internet Information & Technology in 2004. Known as the “Netflix of China,” it was the first company in China to stream television content directly to subscribers. It quickly expanded to producing and selling a wide range of electronic devices from smartphones to televisions.
Things went well for Jia until he became obsessed with the idea of building electric cars. Not only is Jia the head and principal financial backer of LeEco, a Chinese electric car company, he is also the force behind Faraday Future, and an investor in Lucid Motors, formerly known as Atieva. In China, LeEco has introduced its LeSee electric sedan, which is designed to compete with the Tesla Model S.
But the various car companies have faced significant headwinds of late. Work on the Faraday Future factory in North Las Vegas was halted last fall after money owed to the primary contractor went unpaid for several months. Dan Schwarz, the treasurer of the state of Nevada, made a trip to China to investigate Jia’s finances and told the press upon his return that the company didn’t have any money.
Since then, Faraday Future’s plans for a 3-million-square-foot factory have been scaled back to a 650,000 square foot facility which the company says will be completed this fall. The company still claims that production will start “sometime in 2018.”
Shortly after his appearance in California, Jia publicly confessed in a letter to shareholders that the finances of his companies were out of control. The letter said, “No company has had such an experience, a simultaneous time in ice and fire,” he said. “We blindly sped ahead, and our cash demand ballooned. We got over-extended in our global strategy. At the same time, our capital and resources were in fact limited,”
In January, Jia secured an additional $2.2 billion from property developer Sunac China Holdings. But that money is not to be used for Jia’s car making endeavors and is intended instead to keep his core entertainment business units alive and functioning says Reuters.
The number of LeEco employees in the US has been slashed from 1,000 a year ago to about 500 or fewer today. LeEco declined to confirm how many people are still on the payroll.
The sale of the parcel of land in Silicon Valley will help put some cash back into the company as it looks to ride out the cash crunch. Whether any or all of its electric car manufacturing plans will ever come to fruition is unknown. Shares of Jia’s core business, Leshi Internet Information & Technology Corp Beijing, have declined in value by 25% since the first of the year.
News
Tesla’s six-seat extended wheelbase Model Y L sold out for January 2026
Estimated delivery dates for new Tesla Model Y L orders now extend all the way into February 2026.
The Tesla Model Y L seems to be in high demand in China, with estimated delivery dates for new orders now extending all the way into February 2026.
This suggests that the Model Y L has been officially sold out from the rest of 2025 to January 2026.
Model Y L estimated delivery dates
The Model Y L’s updated delivery dates mark an extension from the vehicle’s previous 4-8 week estimated wait time. A detailed chart shared by Tesla data tracker @Tslachan on X shows the progressions of the Model Y L’s estimated delivery dates since its launch earlier this year.
Following its launch in September, the vehicle was given an initial October 2025 estimated delivery date. The wait times for the vehicle were continually updated over the years, until the middle of November, when the Model Y L had an estimated delivery date of 4-8 weeks. This remained until now, when Tesla China simply listed February 2026 as the estimated delivery date for new Model Y L orders.
Model Y demand in China
Tesla Model Y demand in China seems to be very healthy, even beyond the Model Y L. New delivery dates show the company has already sold out its allocation of the all-electric crossover for 2025. The Model Y has been the most popular vehicle in the world in both of the last two years, outpacing incredibly popular vehicles like the Toyota RAV4. In China, the EV market is substantially more saturated, with more competitors than in any other market.
Tesla has been particularly kind to the Chinese market, as it has launched trim levels for the Model Y in the country that are not available anywhere else, such as the Model Y L. Demand has been strong for the Model Y in China, with the vehicle ranking among the country’s top 5 New Energy Vehicles. Interestingly enough, vehicles that beat the Model Y in volume like the BYD Seagull are notably more affordable. Compared to vehicles that are comparably priced, the Model Y remains a strong seller in China.
Elon Musk
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang commends Tesla’s Elon Musk for early belief
“And when I announced DGX-1, nobody in the world wanted it. I had no purchase orders, not one. Nobody wanted to buy it. Nobody wanted to be part of it, except for Elon.”
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast on Wednesday and commended Tesla CEO Elon Musk for his early belief in what is now the most valuable company in the world.
Huang and Musk are widely regarded as two of the greatest tech entrepreneurs of the modern era, with the two working in conjunction as NVIDIA’s chips are present in Tesla vehicles, particularly utilized for self-driving technology and data collection.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang regrets not investing more in Elon Musk’s xAI
Both CEOs defied all odds and created companies from virtually nothing. Musk joined Tesla in the early 2000s before the company had even established any plans to build a vehicle. Jensen created NVIDIA in the booth of a Denny’s restaurant, which has been memorialized with a plaque.
On the JRE episode, Rogan asked about Jensen’s relationship with Elon, to which the NVIDIA CEO said that Musk was there when nobody else was:
“I was lucky because I had known Elon Musk, and I helped him build the first computer for Model 3, the Model S, and when he wanted to start working on an autonomous vehicle. I helped him build the computer that went into the Model S AV system, his full self-driving system. We were basically the FSD computer version 1, and so we were already working together.
And when I announced DGX-1, nobody in the world wanted it. I had no purchase orders, not one. Nobody wanted to buy it. Nobody wanted to be part of it, except for Elon.
He goes ‘You know what, I have a company that could really use this.’ I said, Wow, my first customer. And he goes, it’s an AI company, and it’s a nonprofit and and we could really use one of these supercomputers. I boxed one up, I drove it up to San Francisco, and I delivered it to the Elon in 2016.”
The first DGX-1 AI supercomputer was delivered personally to Musk when he was with OpenAI, which provided crucial early compute power for AI research, accelerating breakthroughs in machine learning that underpin modern tools like ChatGPT.
Tesla’s Nvidia purchases could reach $4 billion this year: Musk
The long-term alliance between NVIDIA and Tesla has driven over $2 trillion in the company’s market value since 2016.
Elon Musk
GM CEO Mary Barra says she told Biden to give Tesla and Musk EV credit
“He was crediting me, and I said, ‘Actually, I think a lot of that credit goes to Elon and Tesla…You know me, Andrew. I don’t want to take credit for things.”
General Motors CEO Mary Barra said in a new interview on Wednesday that she told President Joe Biden to credit Tesla and its CEO, Elon Musk, for the widespread electric vehicle transition.
She said she told Biden this after the former President credited her and GM for leading EV efforts in the United States.
During an interview at the New York Times Dealbook Summit with Andrew Ross Sorkin, Barra said she told Biden that crediting her was essentially a mistake, and that Musk and Tesla should have been explicitly mentioned (via Business Insider):
“He was crediting me, and I said, ‘Actually, I think a lot of that credit goes to Elon and Tesla…You know me, Andrew. I don’t want to take credit for things.”
GM CEO Mary Barra said to Andrew Sorkin at the New York Times Dealbook Summit that she pulled President Biden aside and said Tesla CEO @elonmusk deserved the credit for EVs:
“He was crediting me, and I said, ‘Actually, I think a lot of that credit goes to Elon and Tesla,'” Barra… pic.twitter.com/OHBTG1QfbJ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) December 3, 2025
Back in 2021, President Biden visited GM’s “Factory Zero” plant in Detroit, which was the centerpiece of the company’s massive transition to EVs. The former President went on to discuss the EV industry, and claimed that GM and Barra were the true leaders who caused the change:
“In the auto industry, Detroit is leading the world in electric vehicles. You know how critical it is? Mary, I remember talking to you way back in January about the need for America to lead in electric vehicles. I can remember your dramatic announcement that by 2035, GM would be 100% electric. You changed the whole story, Mary. You did, Mary. You electrified the entire automotive industry. I’m serious. You led, and it matters.”
People were baffled by the President’s decision to highlight GM and Barra, and not Tesla and Musk, who truly started the transition to EVs. GM, Ford, and many other companies only followed in the footsteps of Tesla after it started to take market share from them.
Elon Musk and Tesla try to save legacy automakers from Déjà vu
Musk would eventually go on to talk about Biden’s words later on:
“They have so much power over the White House that they can exclude Tesla from an EV Summit. And, in case the first thing, in case that wasn’t enough, then you have President Biden with Mary Barra at a subsequent event, congratulating Mary for having led the EV revolution.”
In Q4 2021, which was shortly after Biden’s comments, Tesla delivered 300,000 EVs. GM delivered just 26.
Tesla’s six-seat extended wheelbase Model Y L sold out for January 2026
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang commends Tesla’s Elon Musk for early belief
