The founder and former chief executive of Lordstown Motors, Steve Burns, has agreed to spend $10 million to purchase the assets of the bankrupt truck manufacturer.
Burns originally founded Lordstown in 2018 and led its IPO with a special purpose acquisition company in 2020. However, he was forced to leave the automaker in 2021 after it was found that he had grossly overestimated order numbers for the Endurance pickup truck.
Lordstown continued to battle issues through 2022 and 2023 culminating in it filing for bankruptcy in June and suing Foxconn for “irreparable harm.” Burns will purchase the company’s remaining assets through the LAS Capital LLC which he is the majority equity holder of. Cleveland.com understands that Burns’s purchase will include all machinery, hub motor assembly lines, battery module assembly lines, battery pack assembly lines, all inventory, and other associated machinery.
Read: Lordstown To Settle Trade Secret Theft Lawsuit With Karma For $40 Million
Burns held a 25% stake in Lordstown when it went public and sold many of his shares as soon as the lockup period expired. Freight Waves reports that he made more than $60 million from the sale of his shares and also sold off many shares in the days leading up to Lordstown’s bankruptcy filing. It’s unclear if Burns has any plans to somehow resurrect the company.
“It’s just as doomed as ever,” Guidehouse Insights principal analyst Sam Abuelsamid told Freight Waves. “I have no more confidence that Lordstown will gain any market traction than I did yesterday. There’s only soft tooling there. Maybe they could build a couple hundred more trucks, but that’s it and nobody’s going to buy them.”
News of Burns buying the remaining assets of Lordstown comes two months after the pickup maker agreed to pay Karma Automotive a $40 million settlement over allegations that it stole trade secrets and poached employees. A U.S. judge determined that the legal issues between Lordstown and Karma would have to be resolved before the bankruptcy filing could progress.
