Unsealed documents show advisor to Prince Andrew pitched Jeffrey Epstein on EV deals
PUBLISHED: Fri, Feb 6, 2026, 9:40 PM UTC | UPDATED: Fri, Feb 6, 2026, 10:07 PM UTC
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DOJ documents show David Stern pitched Jeffrey Epstein on EV startups Lucid Motors, Faraday Future, and Canoo from 2017-2019, though no investments materialized
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Stern proposed a $300 million deal to acquire Jia Yueting’s 32% stake in Lucid Motors during its troubled 2017 Series D fundraising round
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The emails reveal a decade-long relationship between Stern and Epstein spanning multiple industries, with Stern referring to Epstein as ‘my mentor’
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Lucid ultimately raised over $1 billion from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund in 2018, while Stern became a founding investor in Canoo with $1 million
Newly released Department of Justice documents reveal an unexpected connection between convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and the white-hot electric vehicle startup boom of the late 2010s. David Stern, a mysterious businessman and close advisor to former Prince Andrew, repeatedly pitched Epstein on investing in struggling EV startups including Lucid Motors, Faraday Future, and Canoo between 2017 and 2019, according to TechCrunch’s review of hundreds of emails from the DOJ’s latest disclosure of 3 million Epstein-related documents. While there’s no evidence Epstein actually invested in any of these companies, the files expose another troubling thread connecting the disgraced financier to Silicon Valley’s mobility revolution.
The documents paint a picture of desperation and opportunism during one of the most frenzied periods in automotive history. In 2017, Lucid Motors was scrambling to close a Series D funding round. Ford was circling as a potential lead investor in a $400 million round, but there was a problem – Jia Yueting, founder of rival EV startup Faraday Future, had quietly amassed a 30% stake and was effectively blocking new investors.
David Stern saw an opening. “Ford will likely be lead in $400m Series D in Lucid. Big strategic move,” he wrote to Epstein in emails released last week as part of the DOJ’s disclosure. Jia “has massive cash issues” at Faraday, Stern explained, and needs to “sell now to make payroll for his other business.”
Stern wasn’t just making idle conversation. According to a pitch deck his fund Monstera sent to Epstein in May 2017, the plan was to spend around $300 million to acquire Jia’s 32% shareholding in Lucid. Stern called it a “fire sale” in subsequent emails – Monstera could either hold the position or offload it “when Ford comes in.”
None of it happened. Ford pulled out, and Lucid had to wait until August 2018 to close its Series D, ultimately raising more than $1 billion from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. SEC filings show the Saudi sovereign wealth fund later repurchased Jia’s shares over the following years. did not respond to requests for comment.
But the Lucid pitch wasn’t an isolated incident. Between 2017 and 2019, Stern repeatedly tried to lure Epstein into the electric vehicle gold rush, pitching investments in Faraday Future itself and later in Canoo, according to hundreds of documents reviewed by TechCrunch.
The timing made sense. Legacy automakers and newly minted startups were pouring billions into electric and autonomous vehicles, fueled by Tesla’s breakthrough success and progress from Google’s self-driving project. Stern was apparently hungry to capture some of that deal flow.
Stern himself is something of a ghost. The German businessman has almost no digital footprint beyond his role as director of Prince Andrew’s Pitch@Palace startup contest, which shut down after Andrew’s connections to Epstein became public. Even Prince Andrew referred to Stern as a “ghost” in a 2010 email included in the DOJ files.
But the newly released documents reveal Stern and Epstein had been working together for nearly a decade by the time of the Lucid pitch. To Epstein, Stern was “my china contact.” To Stern, Epstein was “my mentor, and I do what he tells me.”
Their relationship began in 2008 when Stern approached Epstein about investing in AGC Capital, a fund designed to capitalize on China’s economic boom. This was just one month before Epstein pled guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution in Florida. According to his AGC Capital pitch deck found in the DOJ files, Stern had studied at the University of London and Shi-Da University in China, worked at Siemens negotiating joint ventures with Chinese state-owned enterprises, and spent time at Deutsche Bank’s Shanghai office.
Those connections proved valuable. Stern built relationships with powerful Chinese businessmen, including Li Botan – the son-in-law of China’s fourth-most senior leader under President Hu Jintao. Li would later become a founding investor in Canoo alongside Stern, triggering a national security review when the company went public in 2020.
The emails show a relationship that evolved from formal and terse to surprisingly intimate. Epstein once gave Stern an “F” grade for not properly preparing a business deal, writing that “if you want to do real deals you have to be precise and careful„ every error is a fortune.” But by 2016, Stern felt comfortable asking Epstein to become godfather to one of his children. Epstein declined, saying he’d promised his goddaughter he wouldn’t take on the role for anyone else.
Between 2009 and 2019, Stern pitched Epstein on deals spanning multiple industries – buying Russian farmland, acquiring Al-Jazeera and taking it public, purchasing troubled music publisher EMI, and even a 2016 proposal to buy out Deutsche Bank. They attempted to acquire Luxembourg-based private bank Sal. Oppenheim, according to the emails reviewed by Lux Times.
But by 2017, Stern’s attention had turned to mobility. Stefan Krause, former BMW and Deutsche Bank CFO who’d been brought in to save Faraday Future, made a direct appeal to Epstein in April 2017. “Faraday Future (FF) is a great story in itself, regretfully surrounded by a lot of noise around Jia Yueting (YT) and his other enterprises,” Krause wrote. “These businesses are not working, so he run out of cash. FF is starving. Great chance to build a better Tesla.”
Krause, described in the documents as a “friend” and business partner of Stern’s, didn’t respond to requests for comment. Neither did Faraday Future or Jia.
When Krause left Faraday to start a new EV company in late 2017 – first called Evelozcity, later renamed Canoo – Stern was one of the original backers, contributing $1 million alongside larger sums from Li and Michael Chiang, a billionaire running Taiwanese electronics giant TPK.
In June 2018, Stern sent Epstein documents about the startup. Epstein’s response: “fun.” He never invested, but Epstein did pitch powerful people on Stern’s behalf. He emailed Deepak Chopra in May 2018, telling the self-help guru that “david has a new electric car co in los angeles” that would “build the next gen health sensors into the car.”
In June 2019, just days before his arrest, Epstein connected Stern with Sheikh Jabor al Thani, a member of the Qatari royal family, so the sheikh could “hear more about your car co.” A week later, Epstein was arrested. He died in prison a month later.
It’s unclear when Stern last spoke to Epstein. But in March 2019, Stern forwarded him a story titled “Warren Buffet: Electric Cars Are Very Much in America’s Future.” In the email body, Stern wrote: “How do we get him ??”
The documents provide fresh insight into the many connections Epstein maintained with Silicon Valley startups until his 2019 arrest and death. Previous reporting by The New York Times revealed Epstein had ties to companies including Palantir and Coinbase through investor Peter Thiel’s network.
For the EV startups caught in Stern’s pitches, the trajectories varied wildly. Lucid Motors went public via SPAC merger in 2021 and continues production, though it’s struggled with profitability. Faraday Future finally delivered its first production vehicle in 2023 after years of false starts and near-collapses. Canoo went public in 2020 but has faced its own financial challenges and delivery delays.
None of these companies appear to have had any awareness that Stern was pitching their investment opportunities to Epstein. The emails suggest the discussions never progressed beyond preliminary conversations, and Epstein stated in a 2018 message he had no “direct” or “indirect” interest in Canoo.
The Stern-Epstein emails offer a window into the opportunism that defined the EV startup boom of the late 2010s, when seemingly anyone with connections could pitch billion-dollar deals. While there’s no evidence Epstein ever invested in these companies or that the startups knew about Stern’s pitches, the documents underscore how deeply Epstein remained embedded in investment networks even after his 2008 conviction. For an industry already grappling with questions about governance, due diligence, and the sources of startup capital, these revelations add another uncomfortable chapter to the story of how the modern EV industry got funded. The bigger question is what other connections remain buried in the remaining millions of documents yet to be disclosed.
