Tesla Rival Lucid Taps Mercedes Benz’s Top ‘Dieselgate’ Lawyer

Lucid Group Inc., a manufacturer of luxury electric sports cars backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, has hired Matthew Everitt as general counsel.

Everitt spent the past decade as a key lawyer for German auto giant Mercedes-Benz Group AG and its predecessor Daimler AG. During his time working at the company, where he most recently was general counsel for Mercedes-Benz USA LLC, Everitt worked on a variety of complex legal and regulatory issues, including a long-running vehicular emissions scandal known as Dieselgate.

The Saudi Public Investment Fund has a controlling stake in Lucid, after exiting its holdings in rival Tesla Inc. Lucid has relied upon the deep pockets of its primary investor to weather turbulence in the electric vehicle market. Lucid’s close PIF ties also helped the Newark, Calif.-based company, which went public in 2021, raise another $3 billion last year via a common stock offering.

“Lucid’s products set an incredibly high bar for automotive companies, and I’m energized to join at a time when the company is poised to expand further,” Everitt said in a statement announcing his hire. Peter Rawlinson, Lucid’s top executive, added that Everitt’s “impressive legal background, deep understanding of the automotive landscape, and strategic mindset make him the ideal choice to lead our legal department as we accelerate growth in the coming years.”

Rawlinson with the Air alpha prototype in 2017.

Photographer: Mark Kauzlarich/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Everitt will oversee Lucid’s global legal affairs and provide strategic guidance on its growth plans, the company said. Lucid cited his work in the US and in Germany, where Daimler hired the former White & Case associate and ex-federal prosecutor in late 2011 to serve as a Stuttgart-based senior counsel specializing in US legal and regulatory compliance.

Lucid announced last year a partnership with British luxury automaker Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings PLC to work together on electric vehicle technology, a move that came a year after Lucid finalized another deal with the Saudi finance ministry to sell the Kingdom up to 100,000 electric vehicles. Lucid, however, has watched its stock price plummet as the company struggles with output. A US labor board also accused Lucid this month of illegally firing staffers.

More Hires

Lucid, which saw its former finance chief Sherry House depart in December, also parted ways last year with its last top lawyer, Jonathan Butler, a former deputy general counsel at Tesla. Lucid hired Butler in 2020, a year after the company recruited Rawlinson, a former top designer of Tesla’s Model S, to be its chief executive following a $1 billion investment from the Riyadh-based PIF.

Butler said in a LinkedIn statement last summer that he was taking “some much-needed family time and rest” but wished the company well going forward and was proud of its accomplishments as it “evolved from a small startup to a successful public company.”

Lucid has continued to hire lawyers. Tyson Avery, who stepped down last year as chief ethics and compliance officer and deputy general counsel at Starbucks Corp., joined Lucid as an associate general counsel and director of ethics and compliance. Lucid also landed longtime General Motors Co. lawyer Kim Crouch as an associate general counsel and data privacy officer in 2022. She was named a deputy general counsel in November.

Mercedes, which ditched the Daimler name two years ago when it split off its trucking unit, elevated Stacey Mollohan earlier this month to succeed Everitt as its top lawyer in the US and North America.

Mollohan, most recently a deputy general counsel and business information security officer at Mercedes, whose US unit is headquartered in suburban Atlanta, confirmed his new role via email but declined to discuss whether the company has made any other changes to its in-house legal staff.